12.6.3

Squatting on the impact-flattened ground, Subaru squinted up at the bearer of that angry gaze.

With bottomless anger in her blue eyes, the beautiful face of the Witch—Minerva—had a crimson hue. It was not toward the frozen stiff Subaru but to Echidna, standing at his side, to whom she turned a grave look as she said, "I repeat, I am putting this pact on hold. I do not approve of this pact."

"…Hmm. To me, this is quite an unexpected development."

The way she spoke held familiarity as well as enmity, displaying an attitude far too bloodthirsty to be called friendly.

As she trained that toward Echidna, Minerva stood at the center of the crater, crossing the arms with which she had used to make the mighty deformation, making her bountiful breasts bounce as she bit her lip.

"This is the occasion of a pact and a Witch's pact at that. Even you are surely not incapable of understanding what an important ceremony this is. Or perhaps you had your eye on him, too… Is this envy?"

"Do not make light of this with your petty jokes. Do you not understand the reason I am angry like this? I am indignant. I am in a rage. You have driven me into a fury!"

When Echidna tried to sidestep with frivolities, Minerva shouted with anger, her face growing redder still. She was so high-strung that her eyes were filled with tears, with clear droplets trickling down the sides of her tender visage.

This was the very different sense of presence that Minerva—no, what was odd was not the sensation but the fact that she was there at all.

"…How are you here?"

"What?! Are you saying it's wrong for me to come here like this?!"

"Not that. I'm not saying that…but I mean, Echidna's, like, right there."

As Minerva's cheeks puffed up with dismay, Subaru pointed toward Echidna. The pointing finger made Minerva cock her head, but Echidna went "Ah" in apparent understanding, clapping her hands together as she said, "Now I know the cause of your bewilderment. —You find it strange that she and I are together in the same place."

"Th-that's right. Before when you let me meet with the other Witches, you said you were lending yourself to let them borrow your existence, but this would mean that talk was—"

"She lied to you, then. This girl has a foul personality, prone to evil pranks for no good reason."

When Minerva smacked down his rebuttal, Subaru went, "No way," and looked at Echidna.

"Please do not misunderstand," Echidna stated as a preamble in response to his gaze. "Certainly, when I explained substitution was necessary, I lied but only about that single point. But their manifesting here presents a danger to me. If I, a soul alone at present, am defeated, the right to rule this place will be transferred. There is no guarantee that they would not angle for that."

"That's, ah, but just on account of that…"

"For example, if Sekhmet, the Witch of Sloth, was of a mind to do just that, I have no chance of victory. Though in the first place, if I made an enemy of her, she could slaughter me and the other four Witches put together in one second."

To Subaru, slow on the uptake, Echidna was revealing what had happened without a single shred of guilt. There were parts that he could accept and parts that, emotionally speaking, he could not.

But as that complicated mental state made Subaru grimace, Echidna continued, "Besides, perhaps I dislike other Witches crawling out of the woodwork out of concern one might whisk you away?"

"Er, um, what?"

"I find myself liking you more with every return. Not in life or death has a conversational partner made my heart leap so. Therefore, I want you all to myself. If you must declare me a fool for making one shallow lie for that sake…go ahead and laugh, if you like."

For her craving to monopolize ran very deep—a powerless smile came over Echidna as she revealed her true thoughts.

Left speechless, Subaru's thoughts wandered over Echidna's excuse—and in search of the reason for her obsessive spirit toward him. It wasn't just her; the Witch of Jealousy also saw Subaru as—

"What do you think you're doing, swallowing everything she says so easily?"

"—Dah?!"

As Subaru sank into thought, a powerful blow struck his head from behind.

The impact made his eyes spin. It seemingly had enough power to rip his head off—and yet, what occurred was not pain but a feeling of excessive exhilaration that blew lethargy out of his entire body.

The blond Witch who had done this made an exaggerated grimace with her adorable face and said, "And, you, stop letting Echidna take you for a ride with her flattery! That lightweight decision-making and empty-headed attitude is really ticking me off!!"

"Flattery makes it sound so underhanded. I am creating an opportunity between him and I only so that we might strive for greater understanding together. If I do say so myself, a pact is simply the result of having formed a bond of trust…"

"I'm telling you, change that 'I explained it properly already' attitude! Certainly, you've spoken with the boy about the good points of a pact. But as for the bad points of being in a pact! You haven't! Said! A single! Darn! Word!!"

Giving in to her anger, Minerva stamped her foot on the ground, making the grassland explode in a spectacular cloud of dust. Setting aside her overwhelming state of agitation, Subaru was aghast at the meaning of Minerva's words.

—Certainly, he had no memory of touching on the downsides of a pact during his back-and-forth with Echidna. He became self-conscious of how careless he'd been in not realizing that fact.

"W-wait. Whaddaya mean, downsides? There wouldn't be some huge exaggerated thing like…"

"You don't think there'd be any? You look on pacts too lightly, particularly where the Witch of Greed is concerned—she who came into contact with the most humans among all the Witches, whose words interfered with history."

"All of those were acts taken in life… Though I cannot say that all of those who formed pacts with me found happiness."

Minerva was thrusting before Subaru's eyes a side of the Witch he didn't know. Furthermore, as if to bolster the validity of the words, Echidna was, in the end, asserting that she meant no harm to Subaru.

Subaru was tormented by the pair's words, but emotionally he wanted to believe Echidna.

Of course he did. Ever since associating with Echidna at the tomb like that, they'd met several times over. She was also someone to whom he could divulge the circumstances he couldn't to anyone outside the dream, someone who understood Return by Death.

That was why, through the offer of cooperation that went by the name of pact, Subaru had found salvation.

As Subaru mulled it over, he stared at the white-haired Witch and the blond-haired Witch in turn. Emotionally, he doubtlessly tilted toward Echidna. However, Minerva's presence had him concerned.

Why had she leaped out? Previously, Minerva had leaped out to deliver healing via punches and save Subaru from impending death. This was the Witch of Wrath's reason for being.

That same Minerva had gone out of her way to cut into the conversation, something that had to give him pause.

"Echidna. When a pact is formed, there has to be a demerita…no, compensation."

"…I suppose there is. A pact requires compensation. Just as I am to provide you with my knowledge, you must offer me something to serve as compensation."

"If that's so, what do you want from me? —What do I have to offer you?"

That question was one that needed to be asked and answered before a pact was formed. Indulging in Echidna's benevolence, Subaru had sincerely forgotten that he had to offer her something, too.

—And just what compensation could a Witch extract from a fool at an impasse in a blind alley of fate?

"There is no need to be tense. There is no need for concern. The compensation I seek from you is not a difficult thing. For that matter, among the pacts I have formed to date, I would call it exceptionally forthright."

"…What, then?"

"It is a simple thing. What you feel, what you think, what is left in your heart, the futures you know, the things you do, the possibilities you create, the fruits of all the 'Unknowns' that hail from your existence—I…wish to taste them."

Her cheeks faintly reddened, Echidna confessed as if she was a young maiden in love.

The fruits of the Unknowns—the poetic, roundabout wording made Subaru knit his brow.

"That's… Are you saying you'd pull my emotions and memories right out of me?"

"You say the most provocative things. You are mistaken. I simply want to see the scenery you see, to hear the music you hear, to stand in the place of knowing the Unknowns that spring forth from you. That is all it will take to satisfy me."

As if to wipe away Subaru's concerns, Echidna clarified what it was that she sought.

All that she wanted was to see Subaru walk off toward his destination and to gaze at the same scenery he did along the way. She wanted to know what Subaru felt, what Subaru knew, and the results of Subaru's actions.

"That's not a lie, is it?"

"The occasion of a pact is no place for lies. So that I may remain myself, I vow that I shall absolutely never turn my back upon these words. Even at the cost of my life."

Touching a hand to her chest, Echidna added, "Though I am already dead," concluding with a lighthearted demeanor.

He did not think that those words were lies. Perhaps that was simply what he wanted to believe.

But if it was just him wanting to believe, that was enough. If Subaru were to think that way, then—

"It is all…true, but…she has not…said every…thing?"

Just when Subaru was about to accept Echidna's confession and try to send Minerva away, his shoulders jumped. It was a voice he had heard only tens of minutes before, and the sound anything but pleasant.

"The Witch of Lust…Carmilla!"

"S-stop… I'm not, doing anything… So don't make such scary eyes… No…"

"I was born with this mean mug. This ain't some kind of special glare meant just for you."

With broken grassland separating Subaru and the pair of Witches, a third Witch appeared from a position a short distance removed. Carmilla, dressed no differently from earlier, timidly stared down at her own feet.

She did not look toward Subaru. She did not meet anyone's eyes. But that did not mean she was silent.

"E-Echidna is…not lying…but she is hiding lots of things, okay?"

"She's hiding things…?"

At that late stage, no anger rose within him at successive Witches coming to stand before him. However, the Witches successively standing before him were making assertions one after the other that he could not simply let pass in silence.

The same went for Echidna. Toward the suddenly appearing Carmilla, she closed one eye and said, "Suddenly appearing and lobbing insults is very rude. In the first place, why are you giving him warnings? Unlike Minerva, you have no reason to give him your backing. You must despise him."

"A…r-reason like…Minerva? I have a proper… Mm, I don't. But, Echidna, you…deceived me…didn't you?"

Echidna's statement was orderly; in contrast, Carmilla's words were halting and broken. Eyes downcast, the Witch's speech pattern was frail. However, in contrast to her voice, her assertion was uncompromising.

Even as Carmilla's gaze timidly wandered, her demeanor stared straight at Echidna. "I don't…l-like this boy. But…Echidna because you…deceived me… People who do things to me I don't like are…absolutely unforgivable."

—Only the last phrase was so clear that he heard it distinctly.

It took some time before Subaru could comprehend what this meek Witch was saying. That was how much at variance that last phrase was from his image of the Witch to that point.

—In silence, without averting her eyes whatsoever, Carmilla stared at Echidna.

A vortex of emotion hard to put into words rested in her eyes—laying within was a somber darkness resembling hatred for those who bore enmity for her or who turned similar emotions toward her; this she absolutely could not forgive.

She was love of self-personified—that was the thought that rose in the back of Subaru's mind.

"Good grief. Even if it was necessary, making Carmilla do something contrary to her will was a blunder on my part. Making an enemy of you is exceptionally troublesome, after all."

"That is…because everyone is my ally… Being hated by me is…terrible, you know…?"

By no means were meekness and militancy necessarily exclusive. Carmilla might have been introverted—so frail of personality that she could not even meet other people's eyes while conversing with them—but she would show no mercy to her enemies. The former was unrelated to the latter.

"What have you…? What have you people been talking about all this time?!"

And surrounded by the Witches' perilous atmosphere, Subaru finally exploded. Feeling the gazes of the three Witches turn toward him, Subaru had a desperate look as he pleaded his case.

"Quit cutting me out of the conversation already! It's my…it's my choice, damn it! Say it so I can understand! What's Echidna hiding?! What do you know?!!"

"Please do not lend your ears to these girls, Subaru Natsuki. I have made my vow. To waver here would be akin to doubting that vow. That would be simply too cruel…"

As Subaru raised his voice in anger, Echidna spoke with a calm, collected voice to the last.

Once more, Subaru began to feel like something was off about that calm, collected tone. Moving past the rising passion of his earlier mental state, he gave her words fresh scrutiny.

Why were the two Witches interrupting Echidna's words?

Something was odd. She hadn't said anything odd. She'd vowed that she was not lying. The other Witches acknowledged that, too. Then just where was the problem—?

"I shall repeat myself, Subaru Natsuki. Once you choose me, once you form a pact with me—I will, without fail, bring you to the future you desire."

"—Sigh. Bringing out 'without fail' at the very end is so cliché…"

"—!! Who is it this time?!"

As Echidna stretched a hand out toward him, her assertive words were weighed down by a languid voice.

When he looked over, he saw a bizarre creature opposite Carmilla, a mass of purplish-red tumbling abo— No, this was no bizarre creature. This was a person, a human being with such a great amount of hair, it looked like a giant ball of fur.

She had hair reaching down as far as her toes, a sultry outfit that was primarily black, and a voluptuous, feminine physique. Her skin was so pale it was beyond notions of white; her sultry, beautiful face could not shake off that unhealthy impression.

The beautiful woman sat on the ground leaning on her hip, gazing at the scene with purple eyes—he knew at a glance she was a Witch.

"So what, you're the sixth…"

"Sekhmet, the Witch of Sloth, sigh. I thought I should at least introduce myself, sigh. In the end, I am simply insurance…of this place's equality, phoo. So I'm on watch duty to keep things in line, sigh."

"Equality? Insurance?"

"I will kill anyone who resorts to force, phew. I am the, sigh, restrictive force for that purpose, phoo."

Regularly peppering her speech with sighs, the Witch of Sloth—Sekhmet—told her story with a very personalized manner of speaking. In contrast to the tone of her voice, the contents were savage, but none of the Witches moved to object.

Echidna had said it just prior: Sekhmet could kill all the other Witches there put together.

But what of it? In that moment, just how many Witches were going to appear in that—

"Ohhh? Baru came? And everyone's together? That's rare, huh?!"

One after another, uninvited Witches crashed the already broken tea party.

With Gluttony and Pride now joining Greed, Wrath, Lust, and Sloth, this amounted to a reenactment of the nightmare that occurred four hundred years prior, and at the center of it, Subaru cried out.

The only one there to face the gathered Witches, the foolish, ordinary person named Subaru Natsuki shouted.

"Stop it! Stop screwing around! What do all of you want with me?! I just… I only wanted some way to get by! You're in the way of…!"

"I think I told you, sigh. The pillow talk at the end is very cliché, phoo."

"At the end…?"

Sekhmet's languid words weighed down Subaru's raspy shout. The other Witches said nothing about what Sekhmet spoke, save one, for Echidna slightly narrowed her eyes. "Sekhmet, you're—"

"I am not taking anyone's side, sigh. I just want to be courteous to the lad, phoo."

What she meant by courtesy or what coursed in the silence between Echidna and Sekhmet, Subaru did not know.

However, from what Sekhmet had said, the words of the Witches to that point, and from Echidna's responses and demeanor toward them, Subaru's contemplations finally led to a single hypothesis.

"_______"

The hypothesis that floated up drove none other than Subaru himself into silence. It was extremely difficult to accept; accordingly, Subaru hardened his cheeks and looked at Echidna.

"Echidna…you said, without fail, you'd bring me to an optimal future, right?"

"Yes, I did indeed. That is a fact. There is no mistake; I shall fulfill this pact. Between my intellect and your special nature, it shall be accomplished without fail."

Echidna's response to Subaru's question was exactly what Subaru had hoped to hear, a full hundred marks for the reply.

This pact, properly fulfilled, would put Subaru on the path to the optimal future. It was just that—

"Your cooperation will help me arrive at the optimal future…but will that be by the optimal path?"

"_______"

"Why aren't you saying anything? Answer me, Echidna… Answer me, Witch of Greed!!"

As if biting, as if tearing away at that stifling silence, Subaru howled.

Subaru stepped forward, heedless of the overpowering, ghastly atmosphere that came from being surrounded by six Witches. There was but the Witch Echidna before him in his eyes; he had eyes for none other.

And faced with that sharp gaze, Echidna let a little sigh trickle out as she said, "To grasp the future you desire, you must accept sacrifices along the way. —You simply lacked the resolve for that, Subaru Natsuki."

"—!! Wait, wait, waitwaitwaitwaitwait! Wait, Echidnaaa…"

"No, I will not. This is something you should know better. Think about it."

Faced with Subaru pressing the point, Echidna's reply went far outside his desires. Her words were most certainly not ones that would clear up the doubts that Subaru harbored.

As Subaru shook his head side to side, repulsed by the warped nature of those words, Echidna spread both of her arms and continued, so that Subaru might comprehend her own thoughts, her own feelings—

"The Return by Death that you possess is an incredible Authority. You do not comprehend how it is truly to be used. You can redo the world any number of times before you arrive at the result that you desire. To a researcher, this is the ultimate ideal manifesting in physical form. Is that not so? By rights, you should only be able to obtain one result for any particular thing. You can make excessive amounts of varied deductions and suppositions about the results. But there is usually but a single result. You can never repeat the exact same conditions in search of a different result. The conditions all shift: time, environment, memory, procedures. 'Back then, if I'd only changed one thing, the results would be different.' This is not in the realm of ideals but of dreams and delusions. Because I have the heart of a researcher, your Authority truly makes my mouth water. With 'identical conditions' and 'verification of differences' secured, one can identify a 'proper result' and a 'variant result.' How could I not covet that? With it before me, how could I not test various possibilities? Of course, I will not coerce you to use Return by Death. You will use that power for the sake of the result you desire. And I shall lend my wit as much as you please so that your desire might be granted. I have high hopes that the great many results that shall be borne from this shall serve to satisfy my inquisitive mind. No one would punish a girl for wanting such a small thing, surely? Your desire for a future and my curiosity shall be satisfied together. Perhaps this makes you uneasy, for I do not know the future, either. I will not purposefully lead you to a mistaken future in order to test the results. All Unknowns are equal before me. By mulling and struggling against the same problems, the answer will come. This makes necessary the highest form of relationship between us. I swear I shall protect you with all my heart. But that does not change the fact that I cannot interfere with reality. If a physical obstacle stands before you, I can expect that challenging it will break your mind and body many times over. If it comes to that, I genuinely intend to exert my every power to protect your mind. I will not tell you there are no ulterior motives involved in that. But I don't want you to think that I am calculating everything because of my inquisitive mind. I do think fondly of you, and it is a fact that my maidenly heart wishes to be of aid to you. I am repeating myself, but you and I are ideally compatibility. I can say it plainly. I will use your power, and you will use me for the sake of your 'optimal future.' It is my genuine desire to be a woman used for your own convenience. Though it would only be in this dream world, should you desire it, I do not mind using this body of mine to comfort you. I shall happily grant it to you. Oh my, that might not be the best thing for the people you care for, that silver-haired half-elf and that blue-haired demon…they who you have sworn to save and protect without fail. Not that I can claim any particular opinion toward them, but at any rate, please take it as expressing how strong, how unshakable my feelings are. Many difficulties shall befall you in the future as well. Your resolve shall lead you to challenge them, but that is tragic. I will become the beacon that lights your path. So, too, will I be the bonds you wish to protect. Your questions, your burdens, your feelings, your hopes…unexpectedly, through the Trial, you have taught me just how much value these things hold. Certainly, to you, the scenes you saw might have been Hell itself. But given the choice between knowing beforehand and ignorance, I wish to praise the will to learn even such tragic facts. With these serving as your gruel, you shall stretch a hand toward the future, even at the cost of your life. That Trial was necessary so that you might learn there might be sacrifices made for that future's sake. As you use Return by Death more and more, perhaps your emotions might fray, perhaps the deaths of people precious to you might fail to move your heart, but most of all, you might have to lose some part of yourself in order to arrive at the place at which you are destined to reach. The Trial prevented that end. I did that, in order to protect you. If those scenes pained your heart, putting you on the verge of breaking, I do not exaggerate in saying I did it for that sake. Because it would serve as the linchpin for your moving forward, I accepted it. With my words, I shall grant you the strength to advance forward. I will console you, I will scold you, I will even love you. Or if it is hatred you require, I will devote that to you, all for you. You like girls who devote themselves to you, yes? You need me. By yourself, you cannot grasp the future. It is none other than I who is the most suitable girl for you. —You need me. And I need you. Already, there is none other than you who can satisfy my curiosity. I mean, I've already discovered you. You broadened my world. Through you, I, said to be the Witch bearing the greatest intellect in the world, have tasted the fruit of the Unknown once more. If you want to use that power to save someone, then save me. Having even the crumbs of that noble thought is enough for me. Please. I want you to trust me. Perhaps you think I deceived you because of the fact that I did not expose enough of what I truly thought beforehand. I wanted to get the timing right. If I exposed these feelings while our relationship was still shallow, you would probably have pushed me away. I did not want that. I could not endure that. That goes for you too, yes? If you lost me as a collaborator, your heart would surely be broken. We are both working toward our optimal ends. And I know what that optimal end is. I can help you. Through infinite trial runs, you will arrive at the future, albeit with your heart worn down and scarred by the ordeal. Let me do this. I will never betray your trust. Certainly, my heart might be attracted to the resulting choices, and my inquisitive heart may waver toward paths other than that which is optimal. I cannot hold my own greed in check enough for me to tell you that will never happen. I acknowledge that. But I will gloss over nothing. I will speak openly and honestly. Even if the result of that will damage your trust, I will expend no effort to win that trust back. No matter what might happen, I will, without fail, bring you to the future you desire. I absolutely, absolutely will. So as the choices necessary for that become clear, would you not let me be the one to choose? It will be precisely according to the preamble for the pact: I will grant what you desire, what it is that you seek. It will be no more and no less than this. After that, how much you permit your body to be sliced for the sake of that which you desire and crave is up to you. I have conveyed my resolve. Next, I want to hear yours. I want you to demonstrate that you, who would form a pact with me, who would benefit from my cooperation, have the enduring spirit required to arrive at the future without fail. It is you, the first and only one to overcome the second Trial, who can puff out your chest and speak these words with pride. Do this, please me, and I shall release you from the tomb and guide you to the third Trial. Beyond that rests the liberation of the Sanctuary. In so doing, the precious people most important to you, the people you care about held captive in the Sanctuary, will be saved. For the sake of this, you will undergo a true Trial. For the sake of that, seize me, use me, do with me as you please as you let your greed rage, and we shall grasp the future together. This is everything I have to offer to aid you and find what you desire, what you seek. I intend to peel back everything honestly and earnestly. I will not allow the other girls around us to interfere any longer. It is as you said: This is a matter between you and I alone. I want you to give me your answer. I have told you everything… Truly the naked truth. Passionately. This might be close to love. A vow of love. So how will you respond to my love? I want a reply. This reply, after all, will be another thing serving to satisfy my curiosity."

—With that, Echidna smiled adorably.

Her fleeting, snow-like hair rustled, her cheeks faintly red from excitement, standing there with the look of a maiden at her most vulnerable, fresh from offering her confession, waiting with all her heart for Subaru's reply.

With upturned eyes, she gazed toward him, Subaru's face reflected clearly in her black eyes. Subaru slowly shifted his gaze from them, looking at the other Witches gathered around. The five Witches besides Echidna were each in various states, watching and awaiting the result of Echidna's confession in their own way.

Sekhmet, languidly; Carmilla, disinterestedly; Daphne, with a repulsive smile; Typhon, tilting her head with a mystified look; for some reason, Minerva alone had a face ready to burst into tears.

It was funny. He was tempted to laugh. —Not that he actually did.

"Echidna."

"What is it?"

"You'll be…using me?"

She'd be using him. Such words were repeated over and over as Echidna had spoken.

Echidna nodded unreservedly in response.

"I will. You should simply use me back. That is the purpose of our pact. If you wish to rebuke me for using it as a means of not letting go of you, I shall gladly hear it. This is the truth, after all."

"It's not as if I didn't think about it. That's how relationships based on pros and cons work. I expected—I was resolved to your intentions not being a hundred percent benevolent. But."

In front of Echidna, Subaru covered his face with his hands. He turned his face toward the sky in a simple…lament.

"But this is just too much…"

"_______"

Echidna had an aura of bewilderment at the tenor of Subaru's trembling voice. That settled it.

Everything that had accumulated between their first chance encounter and that very moment lost its color and collapsed.

Across their introduction, the tea party upon their reunion, the false classroom in the Trial, and the obstructions in reality—her presence and her words had saved the brokenhearted Subaru many times over. It was those bonds that had brought him to the determination to form a pact.

—Cruelly, all those things had come back to mock the foolishness of Subaru Natsuki.

"I do not really understand what your problem is. If you are to arrive at the optimal result, you must resign yourself to a certain degree of injury. That is your decision to make, something I believe I have already acknowledged, so…"

"Me resigning to… Not that I've resigned to it, but that's dancing to your tune, ain't it?"

"Unsurprisingly, you find that hard to accept. In the end, it is you who must draw the conclusion. I am merely aiding you to do so. If you wish to place the responsibility for that with me, that would put me in a bind. That's a horrible thing to do, don't you think?"

Pursing her lips, Echidna made a pouty face as she protested. It seemed like a childish display of emotion, out of place enough to make one laugh, but it only served to deepen Subaru's misgivings.

Those doubts had been there from the beginning. Now they had only grown stronger. She acted so unwitchy, and many times, the gap between the subjective and the objective had instilled ease rather than discomfort.

However, at the present, that foreboding he felt strengthened, enlarged, and took definable form—

"—There's no sense of seriousness anywhere in your attitude. Everything you do and say feels…superficial."

"_______"

"When you laugh, even when you're angry, your attitude is frivolous and childish. Even right now, when it's time to be angry, you're just pouting… It's not an issue of being open-minded or something. That attitude of yours…your attitude is strange. I…mistook that for you being someone easy to get along with, but…"

"_______"

"That's not actually it. Echidna, you're—someone who can't understand other people's emotions."

His fleeting encounters with Echidna to that point, the words they had exchanged, all of them changed to the color of sepia.

He'd believed all those traits made her likable, but as a result of those shallow displays of emotion, he'd come to know better.

And faced with such disparaging words, Echidna's expression still did not change. It was not the proper response.

"This is another place you should be getting angry, see."

"…Is that so? I should have taken this moment to make my voice coarser and shower insults upon you, then? I see, I will make a note of that. If we should meet again, I shall put that knowledge to good use."

When Echidna replied with those words, all emotion vanished from the Witch's face.

All emotions worthy of the name vanished, and a Witch appeared in their stead. For the very first time, Subaru truly set eyes upon the Witch of Greed.

"_______"

In front of Subaru, cowed into silence, Echidna snapped her dry fingers. As she did so, the purportedly destroyed hill and plain were restored, and the chair and table smashed to pieces returned to their original form.

The tea party had seven chairs arranged. Having provided one for Subaru and each of the Witches, Echidna closed one eye.

"First, would you sit? I would like to speak a little more about pacts."

"…In a situation like this, you're still optimistic I'll form a pact with you?"

"Don't tell me you would reject me over such a minor difference in outlook? I cannot call being temporarily carried away by emotion a wise thing. You should make the realistic, rational choice."

Echidna's sound statement made Subaru close his eyes and breathe deeply over and over.

Echidna's words rang true. Subaru was being emotional. He was being swallowed up by the course of events.

In the end, Echidna had done nothing more than conceal her true intentions. He could believe that all the other parts were sincere and that she would act in the manner she had claimed. Forming a pact here was a reliable key to the future.

The key was in the palm of his hand. All he had to do was to clench it—

"I just remembered that there was something I wanted to ask if I met you again."

"…Mm, I wonder what?"

"I feel like if I hear the answer to this, I'll be able to decide."

Echidna was waiting for Subaru to present his question.

And so Subaru asked the Witch a question relating to Echidna that, during the loop that had begun with the Sanctuary, remained a mystery. Namely—

"—You know Beatrice, don't you, Echidna?"

"Of course I know her. I am deeply related to that girl's birth. What of it?"

There was nothing hidden in Echidna's reply. She simply could not guess what Subaru's question was getting at.

He closed his eyes. On the back of his eyelids, he traced his last glimpse of the girl as she vanished. There was nothing sadder than the thin expression of relief on her face.

Subaru had been unable to save Beatrice from the centuries she had spent in loneliness. When he'd shouted to the girl at the time, her final smile of relief was seared forever into his eyes. That was why—

"Beatrice, has been waiting all this time for That Person to arrive, according to the pact. That pact has to be one you made with her. You tied her to that mansion. That's about right?"

"I did not specify the place, but it is indeed I who commanded her to protect the archive of forbidden books and wait until someone came."

"Then…then who is this That Person? What has to be done to free her?"

For four centuries, Beatrice had continued to await That Person, alone in the archive of forbidden books.

A promise had made her do so. A pact had strengthened her isolation. Even Beatrice did not know who That Person was. Subaru hadn't found any clue, either.

But Echidna, the Witch who had commanded her to wait for That Person, surely knew the answ—

"I wonder, just who might it be?"

"—H-uh?"

"Er, I am not making some kind of joke. I think that from the bottom of my heart. Who do you think That Person who Beatrice waits for might be?"

As Subaru gaped at her, Echidna shrugged her shoulders, appearing genuinely mystified. Subaru was aghast at her demeanor, but he immediately shook his head. He couldn't accept this.

"Y-you're telling me you don't know who Beatrice is waiting for, either?"

"Mm, I do not. I know not who That Person Beatrice awaits might be."

"Why n…? You're the one who told her to wait, right? So how can you not…?"

Subaru was dumbfounded at the one thread he clung to having been snipped like it was nothing.

That Person Beatrice had been commanded to wait for had to exist. Was it even possible that Echidna did not know? Or was some third part going to suddenly pop up and—

"You are wrong, Subaru Natsuki. You misunderstand. It is most certainly I who made Beatrice promise to wait for That Person. But you have a fundamental misunderstanding about this."

"'Fundamental misunderstanding'…?"

"You misunderstand the reason behind the pact I formed with Beatrice. You believe I made Beatrice promise for the sake of handing the archive of forbidden books to That Person, I take it?"

He didn't understand what Echidna's assertion meant. It was natural, even obvious, to take it that way.

She'd been told to hold on to something and to wait for someone. Therefore, the objective was obviously for her to hand that thing over.

However, Echidna met Subaru's thought process with a sideways shake of her head.

"That was not my objective. You see…I made Beatrice promise to wait for That Person because I want to know who that girl selects to be That Person."

________.

__________________.

___________________________

What?

"That girl, you see, was created for a particular purpose. But I decided to use her for a different purpose than that originally intended. That is why I sent that girl far from the Sanctuary. Since a substitute objective was required, I granted the archive of forbidden books to that girl and gave that empty girl a purpose for living: to administer my knowledge and to await That Person who would someday come. I did not set a time limit. After all, it is not an issue with one set answer to begin with. As arranged, that girl's life was linked to it, enabling her to live outside of the Sanctuary. And I was able to engage in a new inquiry: that girl's choice. Logical, isn't it? Of course, spending four centuries without selecting anyone is one result in itself. Having been unable to comfortably select anyone she had met to date, continuing to obey the pact while full of worry, and desiring her own death is another result."

"And what do you think about that?"

"—? I think that it is a marvelous thing?"

As if asked a question to which the answer was obvious, Echidna tilted her head without a single hint of shame.

Her reply, her demeanor, and the expression on the girl in the back of Subaru's mind gave him his answer.

He'd decided. He understood. He grasped it, loud and clear.

—Then and there, he would confront her and make perfectly clear exactly who was mistaken.

"Echidna, you are…a Witch."

"_______"

"You are a monster beyond human knowledge, beyond human understanding."

He told her. He voiced the reply that had spawned within him.

He would reject the hand he had once decided to accept. This time, he would decide for himself who he would reach out to with his hand.

"I…I can't take your hand. I've decided whose I will take."

"_______"

"Your inquisitive mind, the words you spoke without malice have bound a girl for four hundred years. —I've decided. I'm choosing that girl's hand. I can't leave her with you."

This was a farewell. He was brushing away the hand of the one who once surely would have become his partner, with whom he would have walked forward and drawn a future together.

He'd go wipe away that final expression off the girl traced on the back of his eyelids.

—She'd been afraid of death, her face ready to break into tears, but having protected Subaru, her expression was one of relief.

He would save Beatrice, who had grieved over Subaru's death. He'd decided.

"_______"

That decision made Echidna narrow her eyes.

Countless thoughts ran through her black pupils; she was perhaps meaning to say something to Subaru that would make him change his decision. However, before she could, a change arrived.

A sudden change desired by none present had occurred.

"—So she's come."

"H-hey…this doesn't…concern me anymore…so, ahhh…"

"At a troublesome time, a troublesome girl has come to make trouble, sigh."

"Ahaaa. My stomach's reaaally, reaaally throbbing. We really have the full lineup now, huhhh?"

The spectating Witches displayed various reactions to the change taking place.

One bit her lip; one clutched her head; one gave a sigh; one licked her lips.

The Witches' gazes shifted behind Subaru—and from there, an overwhelming, impossible-to-ignore presence sprang forth.

As Subaru was facing her, Echidna caught sight of "it" straight in front of her. Her eyes widened slightly, and within them, Subaru saw a complex vortex of emotions—be it before or after her true nature had been exposed, this was the first time he saw hatred in them.

"_______"

Seeing that hatred made him belatedly turn around. For a second, he hesitated, and then matching breath and heartbeat, he moved.

Looking behind him, Subaru's own eyes finally beheld the new arrival.

From her black dress, long hair, and white skin, he imagined she must have a most beautiful face—yet though he was certain of this, he saw not the Witch's face but a veil of impenetrable darkness that covered it.

Greed, Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride—with each of these attending the tea party, the seventh Witch, Jealousy, had finally joined them.

"Ohhh! It's Tela! Wow, it sure has been a while!"

Only one, the child Witch, greeted the Witch of Jealousy with a wave of her hand.

—The Witches' Tea Party had only one invited guest. Having become a banquet, it hurtled toward its final act.