27

Chapter 27: Exchange of the outsidersNotes:

A longer chapter as promised, but not all that long considering that I had double the amount of time. Oh well...

Motivation for writing at the first day was hard to find. ("I can do that tomorrow"-mentality)

EDIT: 6666 Hits! I feel Demonically Inspired

EDIT2: 7000 Hits

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

Her little magic experiment hadn't gone as unnoticed as she had hoped, because as soon as she flew through her window and got ready for bed the door to her room flew open and a very exasperated maid stormed in.

"My apologies Lady Degurechaff for disturbing you, but is everything alright?"

"Yes, of course. Why should it not be? Has something happened?"

"We feared a possible attack on the mansion. Have you noticed any suspicious activity?"

"You wouldn't possibly refer to the giant cloud of black smoke outside?" she asked hopefully.

"Exactly that."

Damn it!

"Well, then I have to apologize for worrying you and by extension your master as well. The strange happenings outside are my fault. Miss Beatrice graciously offered to teach me magic and I might have gone a little overboard. Please forgive my mistake. I did not intend to disturb your sleep."

"I do not know if Lord Roswaal will forgive you for disturbing his cute maid´s beauty sleep, but I would advise you to properly explain your nightly escapades tomorrow morning." remarked the pink-haired girl with a freezing tone in her voice.

"Of course. It was merely an accident."

"Mmph. We will see about that Lady Degurechaff. We will see."

If that was supposed to intimidate Tanya then it failed miserably. She was not scared in the slightest of the empty threats that Ram seemed so fond of.

After the indignant maid had closed the door behind her Tanya began to trap the room with several motion detecting spells that would run passively while she slept. It was bad enough that she could not lock the door to prevent intruders from suddenly entering like Ram had done, but it would at the very least alert her to their presence.

Her mage shell was also activated in case that someone tried to shoot at her from the doorway or through the annoyingly vulnerable windows. Seriously, how was this place supposed to be defended if all the windows were made from glass and were multiple meters big? Pure foolishness! Everyone could just smash through and would be inside. In a conflict this building would be useless.

After making sure that all her security measures functioned as they should she allowed herself a few hours of restless sleep. Even though the bed was comfortable she was plagued by nightmares.

Morning began with her reading the rest of the books until it was time for breakfast. Due to her bad dreams she had woken early and was extremely sleep deprived which soured her mood. Without Visha´s heavenly coffee this was only worsened. So it was no surprise that she barely spoke a word at the dining table and only stared blankly into her tasteless meal.

Then the stupid maid brought up yesterday´s incident again and made matters even worse. Tanya had secretly hoped that she would forget the whole affair, but of course the pink-haired bitch had not done her that favour.

Now she had to explain the nature of her magic experiments with Beatrice. She made sure to inconspicuously pass as much of the blame as she could onto the other girl, because the petite librarian was not present during the conversation and didn´t seem to be on good terms with Roswaal. This meant that there was only a very small chance that both of them would extensively talk about the whole affair and he would notice the small errors and exaggerations in her story.

Her saving grace was that Roswaal had not been present when it happened, because he was in the forest hunting mabeasts and Emilia and Subaru had been too fast asleep to be aware of what happened outside. In the end it came down to a disagreement between two maids and a royal candidate, so it was clear who won the debate about her innocence.

Unfortunately her magic training was restricted to the daytime hours, but that was only a minor annoyance. A bigger problem was that she needed the help of a strange to find Beatrice´s library again. Well, she just had to make the best out of the situation by interrogating the boy alone.

"Subaru! Do you have a moment to spare?"

"Surely. What you want Lady Degurechaff?"

It would only be a matter of time before the details of her origin spread around if Emilia or Roswaal had not already told him. So to give him this information that was already useless or would soon become common knowledge anyway was an easy decision. She needed to find out more about it him to accurately assess his threat-level or rather usefulness for her plans.

"As you may already know... I was not born in this world. I believe the same applies to you."

His expression turned into one of comical shock. Tanya had to stifle a laugh at his foolishness.

"What... How did you... Are you from Japan as well?"

"Yes and no actually." thought Tanya. That was a predictable, but complicated question that required a small misdirection to be answered. He had also just admitted to hail from Japan which would hopefully make him relate to her a bit more if she phrased her story properly.

"Indeed. I was born in Japan, but I moved to a different country and spent more than a decade there. So I sadly do not remember much of my original homeland."

She needed to speak the truth in the unlikely case that that damned Puck listened in or Emilia decided to question her later in the presence of Subaru. She hated mind reading magic! It violated every sense of privacy and dignity that a person could have. Not even the sanctity of your own thoughts was secured in this land.

"Ah okay..."

He seemed a little put out by this but quickly recovered with a smile.

"But that´s cool! How long do you have been here then? In Lugnica I mean."

"Around nine days maybe. And you?"

"Mmmm... let me think. Also nine days! How is that possible? Although you could say that it was also a hell of a lot longer for me than that."

The last part was muttered so quietly, that she had trouble understanding what he said. What was that about? Judging from the haunted look in his eyes, it must have been something unpleasant.

Also, the coincidence was too big to be random. How could they both appear at roughly the exact time and place? That seemed implausible. Was this Being X´s ploy? It had to be! The idiotic bastard had probably arranged for them both to meet up. But why? What could he gain from this. A terrible suspicion overcame Tanya.

"Are you religious?

"I don´t know... Not really? I mean I am open for other ideas..."

"Do you believe in god?"

"Hey there! No need to look so intense. You´re giving me a fright there. Hehe. No, I don´t think I believe in god. At least I never seen or felt anything that would convince me to believe. You are not a religious extremist, are you?"

"No. Quite the opposite. I just had to make sure you were not one of them. I had bad experience with these types of people in the past."

She pushed the unwanted memory of Mary Sioux´s crazed face down and blocked it with as much will-power as she could muster. Never again! If anyone like that appeared in her life then she would hunt them down and absolutely crush them before they could become a threat. Being X´s puppets would never endanger her ever again!

"Ah... Say, if you are from earth... did you per chance bring a solar-powered powerbank with you? I'm not sure how much longer my mobile phone will last."

What for the empire´s sake was a "powerbank"? Some sort of battery maybe? And "solar-powered"... She had heard that word somewhere. Had it something to do with the sun? Could he mean a battery that recharged in the sun? Had something like that even existed when she died in her first life? So many questions and only one way to find out.

"No, I do not possess such a device. Allow me, which year was it when you were transported here?"

"Eh... 2009."

Wonderful! That meant that he understood how much better a democratic, capitalistic state was compared to this feudal, monarchist society. Science and reason were staples of the modern age that had probably been ingrained into him by savouring the benefits of the post-industrial era. They would work together beautifully when she had hammered a bit more seriousness into his head, for only he would truly understand what she was talking about.

All of that was of course only true if his dimension was like her first life. If his dimension was an alternative reality where intelligent clouds ruled the earth and enslaved humanity then there would be little hope for an intellectual conversation in that regard, but she doubted that. Maybe she should enquire how long he head been in school to discern his state of knowledge.

"How old are you?"

"17. And you?"

Again a tricky question that had no simple answer. On one hand her consciousness had existed for nearly fifty years, but on the other hand her body was only sixteen years old.

"I don´t know exactly, but I have been born around sixteen years ago."

"Cool! Then you are basically my younger sister! I always wanted a cute, little sister to tease. By the way how were you teleported here? I just kind of blinked and in the next moment I was standing in the middle of the capital. Pretty crazy right?"

Tanya´s eyebrow twitched in annoyance. She was nobody´s little sister! And she was above all not cute! As much as she hated her title of "Devil of the Rhine" she had rightfully earned it through struggle and bloodshed. There was nothing cute about her! What was this buffoon thinking how their relationship had progressed during the duration of this conversation? He was still a measly servant and she was a royal candidate. Subaru was lucky that she didn't demand his head for his disrespect.

"I am not you little sister. I have fought in a war and was part of the military when you were still in primary school! Reign in your wild fantasy, because others might not react as well as I to your bad jokes."

Subaru gulped.

"Chill dude. Just saying. Anyway, you were in a war? What war?"

Shit! She hadn´t meant to bring attention to this fact. How could she cover this blunder up?

"A conflict with a few of our neighbouring countries. It went on for a few years, but I doubt you have heard of it."

"But why would you join the army at that age? Isn´t that illegal?"

Ha! If only the command staff had shared his opinion, but the empire was desperate for mages and accepted nearly everybody who displayed enough magical potential. Regardless of age or gender. A fact which had been a lucky strike for her, but was in reality just pure insanity. Why had nobody questioned if it was morally repulsive to send a twelve year old girl to the front lines? She blamed Rudersdorf, the mad dog.

"I had no other choice. Becoming a soldiers was preferable to starving in an orphanage. If I had better parents then my life would have been different."

"For me it´s rather the opposite, I guess. If my parents hadn´t been so good at everything I would not have been crushed under the weight of their expectations."

Pathetic. Such good role models should have motivated him to do better. They would have forced him to greatness! Nonetheless did she refrain from lecturing him about this topic. Tanya tried to quickly change the subject of the conversation before Subaru pestered her with his undoubtedly "tragic" backstory any longer. (As if he would know anything about tragedy. He didn´t have to wake up without Visha´s coffee!)

"You said that you just blinked and landed in capital, right? How interesting. The same thing happened to me."

"Wow. We really have a lot of similarities... Wait. Does that mean....? Do you can do that as well?"

"What? I can do what?"

"Did you... you know... die perhaps?"

Did he figure her out? Had he uncovered the secret of her reincarnation? Maybe he really was an agent sent by Being X. It was best to give a nonverbal answer in case that he could detect lies. So she cocked her head to the side and hummed questioningly.

"Hmm?"

"Can you also return by HHHKKK! Aghhh... Damn that hurt!"

Subaru clutched his heart and grimaced in obvious pain. What was happening right now? Had he gone insane? She needed to distance herself from him before another resident of the mansion could accuse her of poisoning him or something like that. Her reputation was already damaged from the incident last night and she really didn´t need further false evidence to worsen that.

"Ehm, Subaru I think we talked enough for now. I would be very grateful if you could show me the entrance to the Forbidden Library again, please."

"Of course. Follow me." he said with a hollow voice and empty eyes which was quite unnerving, considering that he always seemed so cheerful and carefree.

A few minutes later and they arrived at another random door that he had inexplicably divined to be the right one.

"I have to go. Ram will be angry with me if she thinks I am slacking off."

Tanya just nodded and stepped inside the library without a second glance at the rapidly retreating boy. It was time to teach Beatrice about magic formulae.

Notes:

Btw is it really 2015? I just made the year up, but if canon states otherwise I will correct it.

EDIT: 2009