2.5.6

"—Just how long are you going to sleep, I wonder?"

"Whoaaaa!"

Subaru cried out in pain, having been violently kicked, followed by a hard landing on the floor.

When Subaru shook his head and rose up, Beatrice was there, scowling, one leg raised in an unladylike manner. Beatrice snorted, once again unable to hide her displeasure.

"You were sleeping quite comfortably while I bothered to come at the appointed hour."

"It's like, you've got to put people down even when you don't have to?"

As Subaru talked back, he broke out in a cold sweat at having unintentionally slept. He'd gone as far as to hurt himself to stay awake and to keep his guard up.

"Sleeping on the all-important fourth day. Maybe I really do have a death wish."

"Would you cease your muttering, I wonder? There are more appropriate places for it."

Beatrice, looking down and watching as Subaru lightly poked himself, sat on her stool as she spoke. Seeing her in her usual position like that, Subaru realized something was off and looked all around.

—He was already in the archive when he awoke.

"Well, this is a surprise. Did you carry me in my sleep?"

"I would not like to spend time in a room filled with that scent of yours, I suppose. This archive is my place and none other's. Could you behave yourself while here, I wonder?"

Subaru decided that Beatrice's actions, taken without asking him, had improved his situation.

Beatrice's Passage would keep an assailant from narrowing down Subaru's location. Surely Rem had no sure means of breaching the Passage herself.

"You actually thought this out, huh?"

"Do not just sit on the floor mumbling. Would you like to be swatted like an insect, I wonder?"

Oh, so that's what you're reading, said Subaru, looking at the pages open before Beatrice as he stuck out his tongue.

Apparently, thinking of this as consideration would be overstating the case. Subaru rose from the floor, abruptly staring at his own two hands.

An odd sensation remained. Someone had held his hand as he slept, hadn't—

"Hey Beatrice, don't tell me you held my hand while I was asleep?"

"I won't be telling you such a thing, I suppose. I would not, even if Puckie asked me to."

"What a thing to say… But hey, at least we can die together!"

"No. Absolutely not."

Beatrice, rather sour, tapered her lips as Subaru looked around the room once more.

The archive, filled with books as usual, lacked any convenient place to sit.

"How am I supposed to kill time in here…?"

With the time limit so close, his anxiety and stress were heightened; it was an open question as to how long he could keep his cool. If he could just immerse his head into something and forget the passage of time—

"Oh, right. Are there any books here written just in I-script?"

"—To think that you cannot read but the simplest things. How many humans do you think would cry with joy at just the thought of entering the Mathers family's archive of forbidden books?"

"Well, I do feel bad for them… So what, you're here full time?"

Subaru had never seen Beatrice walking about except at mealtimes. Aside from the exception of her having visited his room the day before, Beatrice was always in the archive on her stool.

Beatrice lowered her head a little at Subaru's question.

"Such is the pact I have made."

"Another pact, huh? Maybe I shouldn't say this when you're helping me, but isn't it rough?"

Beatrice closed her eyes and spoke as if to cut off all further inquiry.

"All the pacts, they are things I desire, I suppose."

He'd heard the term pact several times since arriving in that world, always with heavy overtones.

Beatrice spoke the word with the same weight as Emilia and Puck did for the spiritual pact they had. Subaru appreciated as much, having formed one temporarily with Beatrice himself.

Beatrice looked so young, yet here she was, in and upholding a pact—for some reason, Subaru felt something like an unendurable ache deep in his chest when he looked at her.

"Hey, are you really fine with all— Whoa!"

"Your questions are becoming annoying. You can read something and be quiet, I suppose."

She underscored her statement by tossing a book at him. When Subaru caught it, he realized that the book he'd caught was written in I-script, down to the title.

When Subaru lifted his face, Beatrice had already lost interest in him, lowering her eyes to the book in her own hands, making a show of declining conversation.

She seemed to be strenuously insisting that he leave his half-asked question unfinished.

While her demeanor left no room for words of thanks, Subaru was grateful and happy.