5
—Subaru’s theory was that ease of falling asleep and ease of waking up were inversely related.
To him, waking up felt like being underwater and having his head break through the surface. No one would ever forget to breathe once their head was above water. So waking up was just natural to him and not something that felt difficult to do.
“I’m jealous you can wake up so easily like that. It’s always reeeally hard for me,” had been Emilia’s response when they had talked about it once before. That trouble was deeply ingrained for Emilia, and she had pretty intense bouts of low blood pressure. It sort of fit her character, but it usually took an hour or so to actually get out of bed after waking up. But the ease with which she could fall asleep was like a child, the polar opposite of Subaru.
No matter how hard he tried, when he lay down and closed his eyes, he would end up thinking about things in the dark. A large number of them were various regrets, “If I had only…” and “If it was just…” and the like. The regrets were about things that had happened that day and things in the past. Whatever his mind happened to drift to.
And while he was fighting all those thoughts, Subaru couldn’t manage to fall asleep. That was the root of his trouble sleeping.
As more regrets piled up, Subaru Natsuki’s sleep became worse and shorter.
—So the events in the sand labyrinth would surely disrupt his sleep in the future.
“ ”
The moment he woke up, Subaru realized it wasn’t just resetting because of a death.
First of all, his surroundings were bright, unlike the darkness at the starting point that had been set in the labyrinth. The settings had changed. The feeling of skin on his body and the chill air were gone, too.
In fact, it was a familiar feeling. The nice firmness and height that he had experienced sleeping in the carriage so many nights on the road already…
“—Gh, I’m in the carriage?”
He was sleeping in the carriage that he had been separated from when everything was swallowed up in the rift that had opened up in the sky.
Realizing that, Subaru scrambled to sit up when he felt something holding his right hand. Looking to the side, he stared in wonder.
“ ”
What greeted him was Emilia sleeping peacefully as she held his hand.
She was kneeling beside the seat he was sleeping in, holding his hand tight.
The warmth of her hand and the faint breathing caused Subaru’s shoulders to untense.
“Ah-hah… It’s really Emilia…right? Then we…”
He touched Emilia’s cheek with his free hand. Her pale, warm cheek was unbelievably smooth and soft. Just touching it made the emotions he felt for her seem like they would explode, and he wouldn’t have minded just staying like that forever.
“Yeah, there’s no mistaking that’s Emilia… So cute. Soft. Warm.”
“—You should not play around too much with her. Emilia didn’t sleep for two nights; she was up worrying about you.”
“Whoa?!”
Subaru was enjoying Emilia’s sleeping face when the sudden interjection caused him to twitch. Spinning around, he saw a little girl with an exasperated look on her face standing at the entrance of the carriage.
“Bea—”
“Shhh. Betty doesn’t like it when you don’t listen.”
Subaru was about to shout in joy at reuniting with Beatrice before she stopped him. Quickly closing his mouth, he checked to see if he had woken Emilia up. She just mumbled softly and seemed to smile ever so slightly.
“Phew, that was close. Anyway, c’mere, Beako, let me hug you.”
“What nonsense are you…? F-fine, I suppose.”
If he couldn’t celebrate their reunion out loud, then he could at least do it like that.
Beatrice sighed and feigned disinterest as Subaru pulled her close with his left hand and hugged her tightly.
“Thank goodness…really, thank goodness. I was seriously worried.”
“…That’s Betty’s line. We were terrified when you and the elder sister disappeared… Really…”
Beatrice looked away as she responded, rubbing her forehead against his chest. Stroking her head, the two of them assured themselves that they had safely reunited.
Looking refreshed, Beatrice lifted her head from his chest.
“Anyway, I need to let everyone else know that you are awake now.”
“…Right, is everyone safe? The ones who were with me and everyone else, too?”
“You can relax. Everyone has reached this place safe and sound.”
“I…see… I see…!”
Subaru’s anxiety eased a bit at Beatrice’s confirmation. Hearing that everyone was safe was a relief.
But the next moment, he felt a terrible sense of déjà vu and looked up.
“Wait, Beako. I don’t want to suffer a premature celebration again. Is everyone really okay?”
“How rude. Do you think Betty would lie about something like that? This isn’t a joke.”
“I understand the annoyance, but I’m not doubting you. I know you wouldn’t lie about that. But we just had this same thing happen in Pristella.”
“That is…true.”
Realizing why Subaru was on guard, Beatrice’s expression hardened as she nodded.
After they had finished the fighting against the Witch Cultists in Pristella, Subaru had gotten the same sort of report that everyone was safe. And as far as everyone else knew, that was true, but—
“Me, Emilia, you. Ram and Rem and Patlash. Anastasia and Meili and Joseph…and Julius. All of them, right?”
“…Then it is fine. There is not anyone that you remember that Betty has forgotten.”
“I see… I see… Then we can relax…”
After carefully checking for anything missed, Subaru could finally feel some genuine reassurance. He was just relieved that they had managed to get through it with everyone genuinely safe.
“How grandiose. You are always the one most in danger, so if you are safe, then everyone else will be fine, too.”
“That’s not what I meant. And you were crying in relief when you found out I was okay, too, weren’t you?”
“Betty wasn’t crying. Betty was hiding her face in your chest, so you couldn’t have seen anything. You can’t prove it.”
Beatrice puffed out her chest, pretending to be tough, but she had dug her own grave with what she let slip. On top of that, there was evidence of someone other than him having slept on the other half of his seat.
“Then what are these traces of someone sleeping here with me? Aren’t they proof that you were worried about me?”
“Those aren’t Betty’s! Trying to frame Betty. How rude.”
“Who other than you would do something that improper? No need to be shy.”
“You’ve got it wrong! Argh, you’re going to wake Emilia up.”
Beatrice forcibly changed the topic as it gradually drifted into their usual banter. Smiling at her red face, Subaru let out a long, deep breath and slowly got out of the seat. He gently slipped his hand out of Emilia’s so as not to wake her up, carefully laid her on the seat, and put a white blanket over her.
“All right, that should be good… Just to check, where are we, Beako?”
“You should be able to guess yourself. This is—”
Beatrice started to answer, but before she could finish, the situation changed.
“ ”
In the blink of an eye, there was a mysterious pressure in the air that caused Subaru to break out in goose bumps. His heart quivered.
It was an overwhelming presence that made itself felt from right outside the carriage all of a sudden. The carriage was incredibly sturdy, but that pressure was unaffected by thick armor.
“Tch, Beako! Outside! Let’s go!”
“Ah! Wait, Subaru!”
In response to that overwhelming pressure, Subaru chose to bravely challenge it.
It was an extension of his desire not to let Ram or Anastasia get hurt when they were wandering that sand labyrinth. He was spurred on by an even stronger sense of duty when it came to protecting Emilia and Beatrice.
“ ”
The next instant, when Subaru leaped out of the carriage, he was overwhelmed by the scene that greeted him.
There was a wide-open space of a couple hundred yards on all sides around the carriage. The floor was a single, unbroken stone surface, and the walls at the edge of the space were made of the same stone.
From the shape, he could imagine that they were inside an enormous cylindrical building. And there was only one building that fit that description anywhere remotely close to where they had been.
In other words—
“—We’re inside the Pleiades Watchtower.”
They had struggled long and hard on their quest to reach this place. Along the way, Subaru had made it through multiple life-or-death decisions, including some where he had chosen incorrectly, broken through all sorts of traps imbued with the Sage’s overflowing maliciousness, and finally—
“—Subaru.”
Beatrice moved next to him, snapping him out of the deep feelings that had overtaken him. She gripped his hand tightly and looked straight ahead.
Following her gaze, Subaru saw the same thing she was looking at. Or rather, he had been looking at it the whole time, since there was no way he could ignore the strange person who gave off such an intense and vivid aura.
“You’re…”
“ ”
—Subaru’s hoarse voice was addressed to the tall woman standing there.
Dark-brown, verging on black, hair tied back in a ponytail. Her arms, legs, stomach, and back all boldly uncovered, barely half dressed. She was only wearing clothes that covered her breasts and bottom and a black cloak hanging from her shoulders.
If Subaru had to describe what he was seeing, it would be a creepy woman wearing a cloak, black hotpants, and a bikini top.
She had long, pale arms and legs, and a bountiful bust that moved alluringly. She was about as tall as him, or maybe a little taller, and there was no question she had longer legs than he did.
She had a well-proportioned, beautiful face with languid eyes.
—Her visage suddenly overlapped with the figure Subaru remembered from just before he passed out in the labyrinth.
“…Are you…the Sage?”
The possibility that floated into his mind immediately passed his lips. He immediately regretted running his mouth carelessly. If she really was the person he was imagining, then the white light that had killed the centaur was her power.
In other words, she was also the person who had killed Subaru twice before—
“ ”
Silently, she slowly walked over to Subaru.
She was someone who could easily turn him to ash. Not knowing what she intended was terrifying. But Subaru held Beatrice close and faced that pressure head-on.
She had tried to kill Subaru out on the dunes only to later save him down in the labyrinth.
Those actions were wholly contradictory, but at the very least, she had brought him alive into the tower.
“From the fact that you didn’t kill me then…is it safe to assume you aren’t an enemy?”
“ ”
“Um, it’s a bit concerning when you aren’t saying anything at all. It would help if you at least said something…”
“ ”
The hypothetical Sage didn’t respond to anything Subaru was saying as she finally came to a stop right in front of him. Her deep-green eyes looked at Subaru, carefully appraising him, looking him up and down.
Subaru worried whether the result of that evaluation would determine his fate, or even the fate of everyone else, when his concerns were suddenly and unexpectedly broken.
“…Three.”
“Eh?”
“ ”
The woman finally said something as she looked at Subaru.
Hearing her voice for the first time, his impression was that it was a little bit hoarse and husky. A mysterious, unreadable woman’s voice, but there was also a trace of cuteness in it.
But while Subaru was struck by that out-of-place reflection, she quietly exhaled.
“…I finally found you.”
With that, her expression changed.
Her gaze had been serious and almost mechanical as she seemingly tried to see through everything about Subaru, but her eyes slowly widened, and with a little bit of time, her expression changed to something that could be called a smile.
She was looking at Subaru with a broad grin.
“—Master.”
“…Huh?”
“Masterrr! Arghhhhhh! I’ve waited sooo long!”
Subaru didn’t have any time to be stunned, though. As his eyes widened, the woman was overcome by emotion, and she leaped at him, tackling him to the floor. Caught up in it, Beatrice groaned indignantly as she was pinned down, too.
But the woman didn’t pay that any heed as she clung to Subaru and pushed her head against his chest with all her might.
Her long ponytail shook as she kept calling out to Subaru.
“Master! Master! It’s been sooo long! I was sooo lonely! I thought I was just going to spend the rest of my life sniping everyone who approached this place!”
“W-wait! Wait a second! What?! What are you talking about?!”
“What do you mean what am I talking about?! You’re sooo mean! You’re the one who ordered me to do this, aren’t you? You said to get in the way of anyone who tried to get close to the shrine. As for the how, well, that’s my take on things.”
“Not that part! Who’s your master?! What are you talking about?!”
He was getting a very good feel of her soft skin, but he didn’t have the time to appreciate it. Subaru desperately wriggled against her powerful grip, trying to escape.
But she seemed to have her own grievances with whoever she thought he was, and she refused to let him go.
As a result, they were locked in a grapple on the ground with Beatrice between them.
“Just let me go! I can’t talk like this…!”
“No way! Not a chance! You’re definitely just going to disappear as soon as I take my eyes off you again! You haven’t changed at all! But that’s also what’s sooo sweet about you!”
“The hell you say!”
Whatever trauma she had, the woman wasn’t going to let him go. Subaru grabbed her head, trying to peel her off him as he shouted.
“Who even are you?! What is going on?!”
“What are you saying?! I’m Shaula! You know, Pleiades Watchtower’s star guardian! Master’s cute pupil Shaula!”
“Never heard of you!”
She called herself Shaula, but that was supposed to be the name of the Sage who lived in the tower. The wise, all-knowing Sage who was the person they were journeying to see.
There’s no way the Sage we were looking for is this crazy lady. I want to register a formal complaint!
And as they both held their ground, refusing to budge—
“—Oh no! When I woke up, Subaru was gone! We have to find—”
Emilia burst from the carriage, her hair a big mess from sleeping.
Anxiety filled her expression when she left the carriage only to see the two of them—three technically with Beatrice—but when she saw their wrestling match, her eyes widened.
Subaru reached out a hand to her, looking for some help.
“…Emilia-tan! Thank goodness you woke up! The truth is, she…”
“Ey!”
“Oww! Why did you kick me?!”
“I don’t know, but I feel reeeally upset!”
For some reason, Emilia was in a bad mood, so Subaru was stuck dealing with Shaula—
“P-please, just help Betty already… This isn’t a joke…!”
Beatrice’s voice was weak and hollow as their hard struggle resounded in the tower.
In the end, Subaru’s wrestling match with the (supposed) Sage of the Pleiades Watchtower continued until Julius and the others noticed the racket and came down.
With that, the party reached the place that had not been touched for four hundred years.
The question of whether the Sage’s wisdom would be able to save the people who were waiting still remained, though, as the story dived into the sea of sand and a soaring stone tower.
—The options unchosen disappeared, and the answers selected remained as the test began.
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