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