CHAPTER 60: TALE OF THE END OF THE END
His talk with Frederica now over, Subaru stands in a hallway of the mansion's main wing on the floor where Roswaal's office is. The heaviness in his head perhaps results from his compounded fatigue, otherwise perhaps from his cluelessness as to how to deal with the oncoming tribulation.
Subaru: “And it's gonna be me going improv again...”
Scratching his neck, Subaru's face sours as he considers the sparseness of his playable cards. He possesses far more information than he did last loop. But a quick glance over that information doesn't tell him whether it directly connects to the oncoming problem. He has to put together the pieces, fumbling with the assembled image as his guide, without ever seeing the puzzle. The blind unease swathes Subaru's heart.
Frederica: “Subaru-sama, what shall you now do?”
Asks Frederica quietly from beside a standing-still Subaru. Frederica came to accompany Subaru after their conversation in the lounge ended. He gives a vague nod.
Subaru: “Right,”
Subaru: “Frederica, you haven't seen Beatrice even once since you came back... yeah?”
Frederica: “Indeed not. I have made her presence on only a very few instances, originally considered, however on this occasion it is not even a single time I have found her. I am truly shamed.”
Subaru: “Well, this time she's probably going over the top with some full-throttle hide-and-seek. Nothing doing that you can't find her.”
If you're going to find a Beatrice who has truly, earnestly disappeared beyond GATE CROSSING, the only option is brute force every door which could connect to the Archive. It would be one thing if a sweep through just the mansions doors would finish the chore, but considering that Subaru has been kicked out to Arlam Village and SANCTUARY once before,
Subaru: “Range's too big and it's slightly extremely impossible. Pretty mean, but this's the kind of puzzle where you'll absolutely never find the right answer.”
Frederica: “And so, what shall you do now? You would have something to discuss with Beatrice-sama.”
Subaru: “If she's seriously hiding, nobody'll find the right door. That's fact.”
Frederica furrows her brows at Subaru's repetition. Subaru clicks his neck, raising a finger,
Subaru: “Here's the important part. If she's seriously hiding, no one's gonna find her. But if she's not seriously hiding, it's another story.”
Frederica: “Not hiding seriously?”
Subaru: “Nobody playing hide-and-seek doesn't wanna be found. Everyone plays hide-and-seek hiding, while wanting someone to eventually find them.” And so the thought that their wanted finder the It might be there's really the tricky something something people's hearts.
Says Subaru, taking a few steps and a sharp pivot to the left. His 90-degree turn halts him beside Roswaal's office—at his document room. The room is small and cramped with paperwork, this being the one Otto edged on crazy sorting. Subaru puts his hand to the door. Through the doorknob, he feels the reaction of CORRECT.
Subaru: “Mysteriously, the moment I open... no, the instant I think to open a door, I can tell whether it's the correct one. Right now, I'm thinking I mighta just got it.”
Frederica: “Subaru-sama...”
Subaru: “And so, the unveiling.”
Frederica's concerned voice at his back, Subaru swings the door open. He feels space warping beyond the record-room door—and the scent particular only to old, well-aged books wafts out from the room. This was the thick aroma of ink and paper that no droll, to-be-disposed paperwork could ever achieve.
Subaru: “I'll be trying to be back before long, but if it looks it's getting too dark then please don't forget to sent Petra off to the village.”
His hand still on the doorknob, Subaru addresses a surprised Frederica. She blinks several times, grips the hem of her skirt, curtsies,
Frederica: “For your return shall I await. Graciously I wish you well.”
Subaru: “Nice. Might even mistake myself for someone with rank.”
With Frederica's maidly sendoff, Subaru passes through the doorway to enter the room. Clicking the door shut with his back, he senses the sound of an impossible breeze alongside the twisting of space. The connection to the outside vanishes, the Archive again isolated.
???: “You finally came, I suppose.”
Says a voice, welcoming Subaru in a completely unwelcoming tone. Subaru doesn't resist as his facial muscles naturally pull into a wry smile. He raises his hand.
Subaru: “Hey, Beako. Haven't seen you in ages, but you're still tiny as ever.”
Beatrice: “Your blither is annoying enough that a lifetime without it would still be plenty of it, in fact. It's hopeless... truly.”
Beatrice sits on the wooden stepladder, holding a black-bound book to her chest. She's always sitting there, thinks Subaru. The Forbidden Archive does have desks and chairs. And yet she's still always in that spot. An acid stings strangely at his heart, him gritting his teeth.
Beatrice: “That torpid face of yours is becoming even more unpresentable, I suppose. Your hurts and confusions are your liberty, but your expressing them around Betty is unpleasant so stop it this instant, in fact.”
Subaru: “Bossy. Sorry, but I've got no reason to follow through with your request. Have to confirm whether the relationship between us is really sound enough for me doing that to be sound.”
Subaru implicitly communicates that he knows of Beatrice’s circumstances, which he learned last loop. A sharpness rises on Beatrice's nonplussed expression.
Beatrice: “So that's what it is, I suppose,”
She mutters to herself.
Beatrice: “Fine, in fact. It seems safe to believe we both have our cards to play in-hand now, I suppose.”
Subaru: “Pretty questionable whether my hand's gonna be anything effective, though. You better bet I'll be filling things in with my imagination while we have our talk.”
Beatrice: “Do what you will, in fact. Since either way...”
Beatrice's stiff expression suddenly unravels. Her stubborn look peels away, and peeking out from underneath is a calm smile and a fleeting flicker in her eyes—unwittingly, Subaru's throat jams silent.
Beatrice: “The term of this long, long, long contract is ending. —In making end the end of the end, Betty will for certain this time be freed from stagnation, I suppose.”
She says, a touch lonesome.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Subaru: “Make end the end of the end... right. That's sure pretty poetic.”
Faced with a Beatrice already fully prepared, Subaru shrugs as he pulls the conversation onto a more favourable track. He glances at the black book she holds—should Roswaal's words be correct, that would be one of the only two PERFECTED GOSPELS in the world. Disseminating information about the future and possessing a prophetical bent, Subaru also sensed they held an instructive kind of 'THIS IS HOW THE FUTURE SHOULD BE' nuance. Witch Cultist Betelgeux acted in line with the writ of his imperfect gospel, with an eagerness suggesting that exact conduct carried a significance.1 That said, since the incomplete gospel lacked any writ of the future's conclusion, the madman was slain at Subaru's hands.
Subaru: “Is you having that know-it-all expression also thanks to that book?”
Beatrice: “...It's you who should be speaking. How much do you know about this book, I suppose?”
Subaru: “Roswaal blabbered some stuff for me. I'm pretty sure I get the synopsis. It's got similar properties to the Witch Cult gospels, an improved version. There're only two left in the world, which're split between you and Roswaal.”
Beatrice: “Roswaal is a loose-lipped man, in fact. With that goal, I can imagine him prattling merrily on about it, I suppose.”
Spits Beatrice. Subaru furrows his brows. Beatrice's opinion of Roswaal has always been pretty ruthless. But until now, there's been a very familiar kind of relaxedness to it. Subaru senses not a speck of it in that statement. Beatrice, just now, spoke while absolutely harbouring disgust for Roswaal.
Subaru: “I don't really get your relationship with Roswaal. Even though you've got the only damn two of these books split between you, and blood and contractual ties binding you to where he's letting you live in his house.”
Beatrice: “State what you're trying to say clearly, in fact.”
Subaru: “Here I go stating it clearly then, your position here is ridiculously unclear.”
Beatrice narrows her eyes. The pressure she exerts, imbalanced with her lovable looks, feels almost to Subaru like a tangible wind. By cutting into the main topic, the atmosphere Beatrice dons changes radically.
Subaru: “I pretty much understand Roswaal's position now. His family's contracted to the Witch of GREED, and they've always been inheriting that. Him managing SANCTUARY also comes from that,
1 Taking a moment for a prolonged TL note.
I'm pulling a retcon right here on Betelgeuse's name, so any Betelgeuses you've seen throughout these summaries were in fact Betelgeux. This is happening because I have goldfish memory and lapsed completely about an Arc 5 Thing, then kept stubborn about it until I finally reread the Thing, or otherwise for Reasons. The Witch Cult Arch/Bishop/Cardinal of Sloth Mr. Romanee-Conti has his name written as ペテルギウス (Peterugiusu, more pronouncably Petelgeuse) in Japanese, which I very vaguely understand as a present but irregular (or perhaps old? Behold my in-depth and trustworthy research parts 1 and 2) alternate (mis-)spelling for Betelgeuse as in the name of that star in Orion. This bit me in the ass since that irregularity wound up mattering (In retrospect well duh?). So more accurately, the Betelgeux should be Petelgeuse. HOWEVER. I cannot describe how little I can stand the sound produced by the arrangement of the letters 'Petelgeuse'. And then I was five seconds away from cementing an unwanted Tim Burton reference in this pass, when I happened upon some guy named Sir Patrick Moore. He wrote a shitton of books on astronomy, apparently had some prestige for it, and happily repeatedly used the term Betelgeux in an irregular but apparently present alternate English (mis-)spelling of the name of that star in Orion. Thank you Sir Patrick Moore for saving me from Tim Burton. Anyway so Betelgeux. This decision is entirely my caprice in character name mangling. Please let me get away with it. though it's still unclear why he's trying to make Emilia win the Royal Selection.”
Beatrice goes silent.
Subaru: “But I can't see how you come into it at all. Roswaal's contracted to the Witch of GREED. Call him an apostle of GREED.”
From how Roswaal's insistently been calling her Echidna rather than the Witch of GREED, Subaru can more or less sense that he harbours an inordinate attachment to Echidna. Albeit an unaccomplished one, he might share with Subaru the same standing as an apostle of GREED. Although being that Echidna just went off and made Subaru an apostle, it's conceivable that Roswaal inherited the status in a similar way in a hereditary fashion.
Subaru: “The gospels... the Witch Cult ones. I can't tell if they have the same roots as the perfected editions you and Roswaal have. My imagination says their makers were probably different. So, I've got no clue who made the cult gospels, but I can imagine someone for the perfected two.”
Beatrice: “...Who, I suppose?”
Subaru: “—It's Echidna.”
Subaru sees Beatrice's breath catch the instant he says that name. He also sees that for Beatrice, that name is assuredly not a small thing.
Inside Echidna's dream castle, Subaru had witnessed the effectively omniscient BOOK OF WISDOM, an artefact in Echidna's possession. The Book of Wisdom's properties differed from the gospels', but its bindings and status as a grimorie transcending human comprehension did cohere. Then tie together the possessor of that artefact and all the people related to her in SANCTUARY, and the answer practically presents itself.
Subaru: “The gospels you and Roswaal own were made by Echidna. Roswaal's was probably inherited down the Mathers family line. So, how did you get ahold of your gospel?”
Beatrice says nothing.
Subaru: “Now, I have a question. About your Gate Crossing.”
Raising his finger, Subaru kills off his previous momentum as he switches to a different topic. Beatrice blinks at Subaru's conversational technique, bracing herself for what he's going to say. And Subaru asks.
Subaru: “—The area of effect on your Gate Crossing. What's the range like for choosing applicable targets?”
Beatrice: “...I don't know what would happen should you hear the response, in fact.”
Subaru: “I hear the response and say it's in line with my imaginings, then it'll be affirming my guess.”
Beatrice crosses her arms. Subaru puffs out his chest.
Her lips quirk as she hesitates, closing her eyes in resignation. Beatrice: “Betty's Gate Crossing connects its space to the interior of a single building. Otherwise to the place most recently known to me. It can't connect over especially large distances, I suppose.”
Subaru: “There aren't any other conditions to it?”
Beatrice: “Do you think Betty has any reason to so nicely tell you, I suppose?”
Subaru: “Well then I'll guess. —Even if it's long range, if you have a deep tie to the place, Gate
Crossing can connect to it. How'd I do?”
Swallowing her breath, eyes wide open, Beatrice falls silent. The reaction supports Subaru's conceptions. Subaru: “If your concentration's thrown off, but you still activate Gate Crossing, what method dictates where it connects to?” Beatrice: “...op,” Subaru: “Done on the instant, everyone pulls out the actions, the words most familiar to them.
When it's something like Gate Crossing, wouldn't be strange for it to be somewhere you'd have a strong emotional attachment to.”
Beatrice: “...on't I suppose.” Subaru: “You, who received a gospel made by Echidna, through Gate Crossing connect the Archive to this place in SANCTUARY. —Meaning,”
Beatrice: “—I want you to stop already, in fact!” The stepladder sways as Beatrice stands up, looking at Subaru with her expression pleading. She bites her lip, eyes watering. Subaru believes firmly that, just then, he jammed his dirty hands into a subject she didn't want touched. A wretched pang running through his heart, Subaru shakes his head. Subaru: “No,” Subaru: “I won't stop. I know Gate Crossing connects this place to a somewhere in SANCTUARY.
And as to why that is, your frantic denials have just answered.” Beatrice says nothing. Subaru: “Beatrice. You're related to SANCTUARY as well, right? What's your relationship with
Echidna?”
Knowing that he's intruding on her heart, Subaru stifles his hesitation, and crushes Beatrice with his questions.
Gate Crossing had flung Subaru into the facility for SANCTUARY's immortality experiment. That a space opened in split-second conditions connected there suggested that the place held strong emotional significance to Beatrice. The spirit girl remembered vividly the facility for producing Lewes Meyer doubles. And then considering the fact that Echidna had given her a gospel—
Subaru: “Beatrice... You are a spirit in contract with who?”
Beatrice: “—!”
Subaru: “I've heard about it from Puck before. About the principles of spirit contracts. Abridging the details here, but the point is equal conditions are made between the spirit and contractor. You've said that you're bound by contract to protect the Forbidden Archive. Who are you contracted to?”
Beatrice: “...a,”
Subaru: “I've just been thinking this whole time that it was a contract with Roswaal. You're in this mansion and managing the archive inside, so it's a pretty reasonable thought, but... right now, I'm really wondering.”
A weak sigh spills from Beatrice's trembling lips. Her small form grows ever smaller as she embraces harder the gospel, arms seeking something to rely on. Like she's bearing something unbearable, her attitude rather quite fickle. Even with his eyes on this, despite having his eyes on this, Subaru says it.
Subaru: “—Are you a spirit in contract with Echidna?”
—That was the beginning of the end of the end.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
The instant he asks the question, Beatrice collapses like a puppet with strings cut.
Subaru: “Bea—!?”
She falls to her knees on the floor. Thunk. Paper flitting, and the insides of Beatrice's dropped gospel scatter loose. Seems that the constant walking with it, opening and closing it, stroking it, and repeating this whole process has long pushed the book past its endurable limit. The impact of the fall separates the binding from the pages, a white paper carpet spread across the floor.
Subaru: “The gospel's... huh?”
Subaru sees several pages fly to his feet, him unwittingly squatting down and picking them up. What flits through his mind is Betelgeux's gospel. Minute writings crammed its pages full, and Subaru almost felt that the owner's madness had infected the text with how the letters squirmed. Subaru had expected the same of the page he retrieved, but—seeing the paper before him blasts that image away. After all,
Subaru: “Wha... huh? Blank...?”
On neither the front nor back of the page is there anything written. Subaru hurriedly picks up another paper sheet and looks, but again is nothing written. He wonders if perhaps, by coincidence, they were pages from the yet-blank latter half of the book, but,
Subaru: “No, that ridiculous...”
Still squatting, Subaru looks over to those scattered around Beatrice, and he notices. That absolutely every single page around her is devoid of even a single word. What really were the possibilities that over one hundred pages had all had flipped over to their blank undersides?
Subaru: “It's a gospel... but, nothing's written?”
Rather than believing a miracle that all pages were showing their blank side, it was more logical to conclude that pure stark whiteness consumed every writing-deficient page. According with that logical thought hits upon an illogical truth.
Subaru: “Why aren't the two perfects telling the future? Is it a gimmick where only the owner can read them? Betelgeux's wasn't a reliable reference?”
Talking about perfects and imperfects, the gospel Subaru's referencing off is imperfect. Its writings were visible to others than its owner, with Subaru currently keeping the thing. Fortunately, following Betelgeux's death its text has had so far no additions. So Subaru had fully been thinking that regardless who the owner was, anyone could see the contents of a gospel.
Beatrice: “It's been... so long, in fact.”
Subaru: “—Huh?”
Beatrice: “Since that gospel stopped indicating Betty any future, already, years...”
Still on the floor, head lowered, Beatrice's speech falters. What do you mean, is the question Subaru manages to keep himself from asking as he instead waits for Beatrice to speak. Beatrice's hands press down on the scattered pagers, scrunches them, ruins them. Her fingers shake, her voice in tears.
Beatrice: “The role given to Betty was to maintain the archive of knowledge. To keep guarding this place until the eventual reunion... I suppose.” Subaru: “Archive of knowledge... you mean, this place?” Standing up, Subaru passes his gaze over the hordes of bookshelves filling the room. These books of the archive, of which even Subaru had reached for several presented to him, had by Subaru's assumption always been belongings of the Mathers family. But, Subaru: “Are all of these books Echidna's?” Beatrice: “She was someone... who liked gathering knowledge, in fact.”
Subaru: “When it's escalated and she's introducing herself as a witch, I'm sure you're right.” She's introducing herself as thirst for knowledge incarnate. With her extravagant attitude of wanting to know everything in the world, yes indeed Subaru thought her greedy. This great mass of books nested in their bookshelves ought to be called the fruits of Echidna's knowledge gathering. Beatrice was the librarian entrusted with Echidna's stockhold of knowledge.
Beatrice: “By your wording... it seems you've entered the tomb, I suppose.”
Subaru: “Yeah, I have. Had terrible experiences, and painful times, but... I'm glad I entered. Echidna's kinda a double-edged sword as a counsellor though.” She's precious as someone to be upfront with RETURN BY DEATH about, but capitalizing on that would prompt the summoning of the Witch of ENVY. That's a pattern where his death becomes essential, and he sincerely would like to avoid it. But if necessary, he'll repeat it. Subaru: “...So you kinda said the gospel hasn't been telling you the future for years.”
Beatrice: “It's the truth, in fact.” Subaru: “I'm not doubting you. Or no, yeah I am. I mean, right? If I don't, then you... and when there's nothing in the gospel.”
—Then, it meant on multiple occasions, she had saved Subaru.
Separation came between Subaru and Beatrice in the loop before last. That was where Subaru first learned about the gospel Beatrice owned, giving Subaru definitely more than a little shock. Subaru had been made to think that Beatrice's actions, thoughts, everything, had been resultant from the gospel's writ, without any purchase for Beatrice's own ideas or feelings to be in it.
Consequently, even when faced with this distressed girl, Subaru clearly perceives his sincere relief. Subaru feels comfort in knowing that Beatrice's actions had reflected her own mind. He doesn't know why it relieves him so. Even without knowing the fundamental reason, this is what Subaru thinks: I want Beatrice to be friendly to me, even without reason for it. He doesn't know what is that makes think like this about Beatrice.
Subaru: “You... why did you help me? It wasn't written in the gospel, yeah? You said you washed your hands of me.”
Subaru knows it's an indirect, disgusting way to say it. He understand what it is he wants as he leaves the answer to Beatrice. Understands, but his cowardice in choosing this phrasing is loathsome. What Subaru truly wanted to ask Beatrice was simply,
—Are you on my side?
Beatrice: “That Betty... with you... gave you... assistance, was...”
Subaru: “Yeah. You've helped me lots of times. There was that time with the ulgarm's curses, and healing me when I was dying. And then telling me, who should've died from the curse, the truth.”
Beatrice has further saved Subaru on more occasions than that. Through the loops at the mansion and killed by Rem, the only saving graces for a Subaru incapable of trusting anyone there were Beatrice and Emilia. Subaru doesn't forget Beatrice's protecting him then. No longer remaining in this world, present only inside Subaru, was this certain and unforgettable bond. So,
Subaru: “With no relation to the gospel, you...”
Beatrice: “—at the end I was told, in fact.”
Would Beatrice not cast away every single question, and ally with Subaru? Someone he could entrust all his faith in—Having lost Rem, and unable to show his weakness to Emilia, perhaps that someone for Subaru would be Beatrice.
In a sense, his wish is excessively selfish. And,
Beatrice: “That one day, THEY would visit Betty's archive. For me to guard the archive until then.”
Subaru: “...They?”
Beatrice: “I was told, I suppose. That until THEY come, Betty's role is to guard this Forbidden Archive assigned to her. Betty can't tell whether you are THEY or not, in fact.”
A zeal in his eyes as he first looks at Beatrice, her gloomy speech prompts Subaru to lose that fire. He furrows his brows at the turbulent portents. Subaru did not know what Beatrice was trying to talk about. Didn't know. He did not know—but he felt he must not let her say what came next.
Beatrice: “Betty can't tell. Whether you are THEY or not. …But.”
Subaru: “Wait, Beatrice. You're getting a little way too hasty. Now just calm down...” Beatrice: “Whether you are THEY, or are not THEY... it doesn't matter, I suppose.” Beatrice raises her head.
Her hair sways with the motion—puttering, lost, reflecting her heart, reflecting Subaru's heart. A bad premonition clenches him tight in the chest. Unable to clear the feeling away, Beatrice: “You might not be THEY, but I already don't care any more, in fact. And so.”
Subaru: “Bea—” Beatrice: “I want you to kill Betty, and make end this contract, I suppose. I want you to make end the end of the end, and give Betty relief, in fact.”
Her eyes watering, a weak smile arises on Beatrice's face. Beatrice: “You, be THEY.”
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