A terrifying visage loomed as Sirius held blazing crimson flames in both arms, shouting with a voice that sounded like a raging demon.

The reason I felt that way through the bandages was the overwhelming passion reflected in her eyes.

When calm, her thin, pink eyes seemed clear enough to draw you in, but now they were filled with a heat akin to the flames scorching her arms, glaring at Subaru and the others with pure hatred.

No, that’s not quite the right expression. Because—

“It stinks. It stinks, it stinks, it stinks, it stinks, it stinks, it stinks, filthy whore…!”

In Sirius’s eyes, there wasn’t even a trace of Subaru’s presence.

What Sirius was fixated on with an intensity that could kill was none other than the two standing before Subaru—Emilia and Beatrice.

“What the hell is up with her? She’s completely different from before…”

Subaru couldn’t hide his dismay at the sight of Sirius in a fit of rage.

In a short span of time, he had confronted Sirius three times. Well, questioning if ‘normal’ was even the right term is debatable. During those encounters, Sirius had never seemed like someone who had completely lost her grip on sanity.

Rather, she was a rational person, albeit a broken one, imposing her deranged theories on others.

But look at the Sirius in front of us now.

Clearly losing her composure, governed by rage, she looked the part of someone who could rightfully claim the title of ‘Wrath.’

“Like maggots, they keep wriggling even when burned… What’s your grudge, huh!? Am I not even allowed the freedom to grieve in sorrow and wear black?”

“…I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Huh?!”

Emilia responded without flinching to Sirius, who was spitting venom, her remarks sounding merely like groundless accusations. Sirius’s retorts were harsh, but Emilia did not cower.

Pointing the tip of her ice sword towards the crowd behind Sirius, she declared:

“If you’re angry at me, then let’s talk. I initiated this confrontation, so it’s understandable that you’re furious. But the people around here have nothing to do with it. Let them go.”

“Don’t you dare speak down to me! If you want me to back off, show me some attitude!! You think it’s natural to get angry? Then apologize! Apologize, beg for forgiveness, and while you’re at it, I’ll burn your insides until they’re crisp and charred!”

“I’d rather not have my stomach roasted… So, let’s make this easier to discuss.”

Hearing Emil’s voice lower, Sirius tilted her head in confusion.

Right then, Emilia slightly bent forward, launching her slender figure toward attack. With an effortless flourish, her white arms swung the ice longsword.

A sharp point glimmered as it caught the light, aimed directly at Sirius’s shoulder.

“Emilia-chan?!”

“Damn it!”

Subaru’s astonished shout overlapped with Sirius’s tongue clicking.

Faced with the swinging longsword, Sirius quickly raised her left arm to counter against Emilia’s ice sword with the flames engulfing her.

“You half-demon!”

“Stop repeating it! You’re making yourself sound dirty!”

As flames hot enough to evaporate spit were hurled at her, Emilia’s ice sword did not melt.

The pale, icy tip struck Sirius’s fire-wreathed left arm head-on—though there were chains wrapped tightly around it.

A high-pitched screech echoed as the ice sword collided with the flaming arm, scattering mana’s brilliance. After barely holding its ground, Emilia’s ice sword shattered with a loud crack.

“Tough luck—!”

With just the hilt left of the ice sword, Sirius boasted as she slammed her arm towards Emilia. The chain imbued with the burning heat would mercilessly sear and gouge at any wound it struck.

Just before Emilia’s beautiful face was marred—

“Gotcha!”

An out-of-place shout rang out, causing Sirius’s arm to be deflected from below.

That was done by Emilia’s ice sword, which was now a weapon again.

“Ah, hey! What is with these annoyances?!”

Sirius screamed, burning arms crossed above her head.

The center of that crossed arms was struck by a blow, courtesy of the ice hammer Emilia wielded.

Utilizing the tremendous weight of the blow coming downwards, Sirius gritted her teeth and staggered back, but Emilia pursued fiercely.

“Hey! Hyah! Take that! Urya! Urya urya!”

“Damn it! Half-demon! Maggot! Bug! So infuriating!”

With centrifugal force and exquisite footwork, Emilia displayed an unexpectedly high level of close combat prowess.

As explosions of flames erupted from Sirius’s counters, she was left on the defensive, clearly being pushed back. From a third-party perspective, Subaru judged that with this momentum, they could win. However—

“I’m not in a position to just stand by and watch! Emilia, don’t push yourself too hard!”

“Subaru, we can’t get distracted right now!”

If Emilia were to defeat Sirius, death would be shared around them.

Feeling a sense of urgency, Subaru raised his voice, only to have Beatrice turn on him for his hasty judgment. Bewildered, Subaru looked at Beatrice and noticed the danger reflected in her gaze.

“—Those filthy bugs.”

“Oh crap.”

There they were, faces flushed and wild-eyed, staring daggers at Subaru from the crowd.

Seeing Subaru and Beatrice, their furious abuse mirrored Sirius’s own rage. It was safe to say that the crowd completely shared Sirius’s ‘Wrath.’

And their anger was just about to turn towards Subaru and the others.

“I can’t believe it’s not just emotional sharing but they can brainwash them like their puppets.”

“Not the time for idle chatter. We’ve got no other option but to escape!”

Amidst the troubles, Subaru let out a groan. Before he could contemplate further, Beatrice dashed toward his back. As he steadied her light frame, the mob charged as one.

“Emilia! Buy us some time!”

“I can’t do anything too reckless!”

With Emilia’s strong reply, Subaru accelerated backwards to escape from the crowd. Fortunately, the steps of those who had lost their sanity were far from normal.

With arms outstretched, they emitted hollow words of rage, almost resembling zombies. The only differences were having awareness and wanting to rip Subaru apart instead of feast on him.

“If I can stall for time, someone will catch on to the unusual circumstances and…”

“Even if they do arrive, if there’s no clear condition to turn the situation around, it’d be meaningless. If Reinhardt shows up, it might be the end game.”

“For now, none of us have the immediate worry of being called in.”

After all, Lachins, the one who would summon Reinhardt, was currently a bright shade of crimson as he furiously chased after Subaru, elbowing through the crowd as if vying for one or two ahead-at-all-costs.

There might be some lingering effect of how he viewed Subaru before Sirius’s influence.

“Speaking of which, while I’m pondering over all this!!”

“You filthy bug!”

Just as a hand reached out from the side, Subaru ducked down instinctively. He dove into the opponent’s range coming from above, sweeping their legs to trip them and kicked their body forward.

The mindless crowd collided with the toppling man, sending them sprawling as though they were bowling pins. Watching their empty-headed antics made Subaru tilt his head.

“They’ve got so much anger that they can’t think straight, huh?”

“But that tactic may not be the safest option. In this mood, I wouldn’t put it past them to trample their allies without a second thought.”

“That’s a real concern!”

He didn’t want any casualties.

The reason Subaru fought so many times was precisely because of this priority.

Of course, he understood there were limits to what he could protect.

There were many things he wanted to uphold. But there would always be constraints on what could be saved.

That was simply natural for someone like Natsuki Subaru, who wasn’t omnipotent.

“But I’m not going to set those ‘limits’ for myself!”

“That’s the spirit, Betty’s Subaru!”

Receiving the loudest cheer from behind, Subaru drew out his beloved whip from behind his waist.

He would do his best to save lives. Thus, with a heart that said to be gentle with them, he aimed at the feet of the approaching crowd, unleashing his whip with a thunderous sound.

A crack akin to small-scale lightning echoed as cracks splintered in the cobblestones beneath the crowd’s feet.

Even though it was a whip that lacked lethality, when swung at full power without holding back, it could strip the opponent of their resistance.

If only the crowd recoiled upon seeing that power…

“Seems it won’t be that easy!”

Then so be it.

With the whip that struck the ground retrieved immediately, Subaru set his sights on the lead figure. Medium build, with slightly bluish hair and sharp eyes. It was Lachins.

He knew him. Even Subaru felt a twinge of pain.

“It hurts, but it’s better than someone I don’t know at all! Sorry, Chin!”

“I’m not Chin, I—what!? ”

With reflexive instinct, he coiled the whip around Lachins’s legs, pulling him up in a single motion. Lachins spun effortlessly, pulling those around him into a chain reaction of toppling.

Even while doing this, Subaru distanced himself significantly to the left from the crowd’s advancing direction, leading the subsequent feet elsewhere to avoid trampling anyone caught in the cascade.

“With their reason clouded, seems like I can buy some time—”

Just as he was about to suggest that, a chilly shiver ran down his spine.

That sensation felt like being pestered by a bothersome neighbor he wanted to avoid yet found oddly informative no matter how often he encountered them.

—In other words, it was the presence of ‘Death.’

“Watch out!!”

“Filthy bug!”

A terrifying whoosh echoed as a large sword swooped down above Subaru’s head.

It sprung forth from the gathering, aiming directly for Subaru’s neck—a beast-man. His pointed canine ears perked up, and while he had a fox-like mischievous face, he somewhat resembled a cunning old slyfox.

The foxman stood with a lavish white-tailed bush, pressing forward relentlessly, aiming to sever Subaru’s head with successive attacks.

“Beatrice!”

“Shamak!!”

“—!?”

Fighting him head-on could lead to losing limbs in mere seconds.

Recognizing the drastic disparity in combat power instantly, Subaru shouted Beatrice’s name. With just that, Beatrice grasped what he intended and unleashed Shamak, engulfing the foxman’s face in swirling darkness.

The slender, long frame and great sword were swallowed in black mist and instantly lost their combat capability.

“Now the link for emotional sharing with others should be severed, right!?”

“There’s no feedback! While I can strip away their combat power, the connection itself isn’t severed! Perhaps the moment that pervert dies, they’ll break free from the tether!”

“What do we do!?”

“I’m seriously thinking it through!”

Subaru could only entrust the unraveling of those mysteries to Beatrice.

What he could do was continue to evade the angry crowd while giving Beatrice time to contemplate without spoiling her train of thought.

“And what about Emilia—”

Anxious over Emilia facing off against Sirius, Subaru glanced in her direction.

This last year, he knew Emilia had been rigorously training alongside her political duties. He was aware her combat ability was clearly stronger than his, as well as her determination.

Yet, Subaru felt uneasy about her. This wasn’t a matter of strength; the fact that Subaru was a man and Emilia was a woman was a significant factor.

To some, it might seem trivial worries. Yet,

“Hyah! There! Take that!”

While emitting somewhat lackadaisical shouts, Emilia was relentlessly pursuing Sirius with an onslaught.

Twisting and rolling, she smashed her ice twin blades against Sirius. As the burning chains circled around her, Sirius spat filthy curses while trying to shoot them down.

The shrill cacophony and ice shards exploding were lost in the sound as her ice sword shattered, but as Emilia crouched down, she thrust both arms upward, wielding an ice spear that sent Sirius flying.

Utilizing her abundant mana reserves, Emilia had crafted ice weapons designed to shatter on impact.

The combat technique Subaru named “Ice Brand Arts” had an ephemeral grace amid the sparkling fractals, resembling fairies dancing in a dreamlike ballet.

Amidst the battle, countless shards of ice were broken, telling the story of the fierce clash between Emilia and Sirius. On a battleground strewn with ice, the two warrior maidens continued their intense duel with the conflicting elements of fire and ice.

“Take that!”

Chasing down the flying Sirius, Emilia brandished her ice spear, thrusting it upward. In midair, as that blow struck, Sirius adeptly maneuvered, avoiding the tip and grasping the base.

“Scorching heat! The tremors of my heart! Ahh, ahhh! ‘Wrath’!”

“Yikes!?”

With Sirius’s shriek, hot energy reversed as if in response.

In an instant, Emilia’s ice spear morphed into a blazing lance, making Emilia reflexively let go. Immediately, with the flaming spear, Sirius landed and began a vicious counterattack.

“Those alluring purple eyes! The voice enveloping all men like a bell! The soft silver hair enticing men! The fair skin inviting them! That adorable face that lures men in! Ahh, you wench! You whore! Filthy! Lewd! Just how desperate are you to lull them into submission! Is this how far you’ll go to snatch him away from me? You thieving cat! You half-demon thief!”

“Stop it! Don’t say those weird things!”

Squinting against the wave of heat passing her face, Emilia created ice swords anew in her hands.

The three-pronged flames speared outright into the ice swords, clashing.

A battle of glaring eyes commenced between the creatures of fire and the strong gaze of Emilia, each refusing to back down.

“Those eyes, that voice, the silver hair! All of it matches the person I cherish most in the world! You’re talking crazy if you see this in a twisted way! I’m furious!”

“Furious!? You’re kidding! That belongs to me! A precious gift from him! This role, this name, all these are presents from him! You can’t just take them away from me like that… STOP! No more, no more, no more, no more, no more, NO MORE!”

Her screams twisted into agony with every refrain.

With a savage motion, this beast fractured the fiery spear she held, swinging it down.

Facing the blow from the flame sword, Emilia countered by summoning her ice twin blades.

But Emilia’s heavenly resolve seemed to dull in the face of Sirius’s taunts, her previously burning mission replacing with a fading resolve.

“—This is bad.”

Seeing that expression on Emilia’s face, Subaru instinctively grasped the dire turn of events.

There was no logical basis, but he felt it in his gut.

Emilia’s shift in expression indicated a change in her feelings about Sirius.

Regardless of her innate kindness, it hardly made sense for her to be so easily swayed by emotion in the midst of battle. Such emotional dialogue had never been on the table. Yet, that response was evident—

“Emilia is falling into Sirius’s trap.”

Yet she had not yet succumbed to total surrender.

Although beginning to dwindle in counterattacks against Sirius’s assaults, Emilia remained resistant. Unlike the crowd, her state of mind wasn’t wholly reckless, and she remained adorable.

It was a realization that felt belated, yet—

“To begin with, how come neither I, Emilia, nor Beatrice were affected by Sirius’s emotional link in the first place?”

As Reinhardt had resisted, did Emilia and Beatrice possess the power of resistance? Whether that emotional sharing had individual variances was debatable. Reinhardt’s immunity could likely be attributed to just being Reinhardt but also to some degree of unconsciousness.

However, if perhaps there was some other reason for this, it could be the key.

After experiencing Sirius’s inner mechanisms thrice, Subaru was now successfully resisting, meaning those conditions could also be assets.

If that insight became a breakthrough—

“Bea—”

“Subaru!!”

Just as he attempted to convey that brilliant notion, frantic shouts rang in his ears.

Startled, he whipped around, just in time to feel a violent impact in the right side of his torso.

“Gah—!”

As pain reverberated through him, Subaru instinctively rolled left to dodge, mitigating some of the blow while purging the instinct to hurl his stomach contents from what had just transpired.

Then, slipping toward him was a shadowy figure—the eyepatch-wearing woman who had moved with uncanny stealth. Her unarmed strike pierced Subaru’s distracted torso.

“Subaru! You can’t die!”

“As if I’m about to die from that hit… Ah, crap. But it hurt!”

His ribs cracked, but Subaru assessed he hadn’t suffered major injuries apart from some bruises. He wanted to reassure himself—if no blood was spilling, it wouldn’t count as a real injury.

“Why does everyone seem most troublesome when they’re foes…”

“Rather, it looks like it’s not that the enemy is that strong; it’s more like Subaru just seems weak against them when they oppose him.”

“Truth hurts…!”

He flicked the whip to sweep away the clutches of the eyepatch woman trying to chase after him, providing time to send sand flying toward her face.

In her single eye veiled by a haze, obstacles in her vision did wonders as Subaru rammed into her, flipping her over.

“It seems the average overall combat power is down, that’s a blessing. If they went at me serious, I’d be half-dead already.”

“… The increasingly welcoming reasons for that don’t seem to be dwindling, huh?”

As Subaru relaxed after tossing away the eyepatch woman, Beatrice’s gloomy tone called out to him. Not wanting to hear it, he tilted his head only to find Beatrice frowning, jabbing her chin in a specific direction.

That direction led outside the plaza toward a massive waterway.

“No way…”

Subaru moaned as his gaze fell upon the crowds approaching, faces flushed and unsteady.

“They’re likely just onlookers who’ve caught wind of the commotion.”

“To think they’d enter the effect range, getting swept up into that link… You’ve got to be kidding. That power of Sirius is both area-based and infectious, huh?”

—Panic, madness, spread from human to human.

Sirius’s emotional diffusion had yielded a stark reflection of those consequences.

Ah, now it made sense. The magnitude of that disaster exceeded even Petelgeuse’s.

“The more we run, the more victims we create… What the hell do we do now?”

“Though there are some weird aspects to consider. The woman Subaru threw and the fox man caught in Shamak— the damage from that link isn’t affecting the surroundings.”

Subaru didn’t point out Beatrice’s odd mix-up playing with tones during serious moments. Moreover, her observations indeed provided a compelling foundation for piecing together the conditions surrounding Sirius’s emotional sharing.

“… Maybe we should just knock them all out in one blow?”

“Subaru seriously lacks the combat power to pull that off. But—maybe using Betty’s Shamak to stun everyone is a viable option?”

Though a crude means, it was a method originally considered.

There was no time to hesitate. Subaru needed to avoid further increases in victims by continuing to flee. For now, he resolved to follow Beatrice’s plan—

“—Huh, huh?!”

“Emilia!?”

Just before initiating any action, a scream erupted, pulling Subaru’s attention away.

What he saw was Emilia collapsed among the plaza’s cobblestones while Sirius towered above, raising her flaming arms.

“More and more is coming! The surge of ‘Love’ flows forth! Quantity is power! Bind together! One is for all! And all are for one! Humans love each other and become united! Sharing emotions, wishes, living lives together in joy and sorrow! Thus this outcome is inevitable! A half-demon like you who can’t join this ‘circle of love’ shall be crushed like an insect and perish here!”

Initially, Emilia held the advantage, but soon the balance shifted, leading her into a retreating position.

As time trickled by, whether Sirius grew stronger or Emilia sank into inefficacy remained a mystery. But soon, as Emilia caught her breath, she gazed longingly at Sirius with distressed expressions.

“Something—something feels off. What you say sounds right, but something feels wrong… why could that be?”

“You can’t grasp the truth! Because you’re just a filthy half-demon whore who has never known what ‘Love’ truly is! You exist in sin! Your very birth, as well as your parents’ meeting, was a mistake! A tale stained with filth, how it all ends here!”

“—!?”

Amidst the unbearable insults, Emilia’s eyes changed.

Even for kind-hearted Emilia, she couldn’t brush aside such vile verbal onslaughts. Not only was she belittled, but her very existence and the creation of her parents were horrifically defamed.

Biting her lip, Emilia leapt up, her hands striking the cobblestones. With a piercing blue glow shooting upward beneath Sirius, she aimed to overwhelm her.

“—!”

A blue flash burst forth, ripping open Sirius’s coat as she recoiled.

Falling back, with anger ablaze, Emilia attempted an offensive once more, her raised arms aiming to cleave through Sirius.

“—Ah.”

“Nnngh!!”

—Suddenly, she froze upon seeing beneath Sirius’s coat, a girl bound by chains like a butterfly caught in a web.

The girl with golden curls resembled Rusbel, previously seen, restricted and weeping blood from her mouth, falling into a flood of tears. She was firmly intertwined with Sirius’s slender form.

Tina— the name that flitted through Subaru’s mind.

“—That ‘Wrath’ is not meant to be yours.”

As Subaru recognized the girl’s identity and saw Tina’s tears, both he and Emilia were consumed by rage. In that moment, Sirius’s smile curled sinisterly, and an escalating wave of flames propelled Emilia backward with immense force.

A deafening blast and fierce wind howled, sending Emilia soaring behind her, leaving a trail of smoke.

She slid across the cobblestones, sprawled in the center of the plaza.

“Ugh…”

Writhing, Emilia emitted a small groan of agonized pain.

Watching this, Sirius raised her flames, which had previously only scorched her arms, now high over her head, rolling her hands in glee.

“Do not embrace such sweet passions, insects. It makes me sick.”

“—!”

“Now then, thank you. I’m sorry.”

With her arms crossed above her head, the inferno swirling within Sirius intensified.

The blazing inferno could ignite iron with mere contact, meaning a striking downward blow would erase Emilia without a trace from existence.

He had to stop it immediately. He had to rescue Emilia and escape this place. Knowing this only made Subaru shout.

“Move, damn it, legs!”

“Ngghh—!!”

His legs trembled uncontrollably, as though frozen in fright.

That abnormal reaction in Subaru’s body began the moment he saw the eyes of the girl restrained to Sirius’s body. Even Beatrice on his back was clenching her teeth in apprehension.

Emotional sharing— even resonated with spirits. How absurd. He couldn’t afford to contemplate now.

“Eh, Emilia…!”

His throat constricted as he struggled to call out the name of the dear girl he adored.

That voice likely wouldn’t have reached Emilia.

To what extent did Emilia, lying helplessly on the cobblestones, consider what was nearing her?

—Though everything was consumed in flames, the all-encompassing sounds drowned out her thoughts, leaving no one to grasp their meaning.

The overwhelming heat scorched the plaza, the shockwaves illuminating the world in a golden hue.

Before such a almost magical spectacle, Subaru found himself trembling, kneeling on the ground.

“Subaru…”

Beatrice, perched on his back, called out his name hesitantly.

He couldn’t react. Staring down at the ground, dread engulfed him, and he refused to confront the grim reality ahead.

If he lifted his gaze, if he saw where the flame had struck, he would succumb to fear.

No, he had already lost; his heart shattering beneath the weight of his fears.

If he beheld Emilia’s charred remains, her disappearing trace—

“Subaru, Subaru! Subaru!”

Still desperately, Beatrice continued to call Subaru’s name.

With each hit to his head, he felt the growing fear holding him hostage as he weakly shook his head.

It was futile. Even if a monster stood right in front of him, Subaru—

“—Made it just in time!”

But at that moment, upon hearing those words, Subaru’s heart fell not to a fear of the unknown but to an insurmountable horror.

He lifted his face to the source of the voice—toward the spot where Emilia had vanished.

There, a lone man stood tall.

Amidst the tragedy of scorched earth, with smoldering ash and cracking stones audible, he remained calm.

And there was—

“Emilia…?”

The girl he thought had been consumed by flames was revealed standing before the man.

Though her eyes were closed and she appeared limp, her body bore no injury.

While she had sustained a tremendous amount of mental damage and the terror looming close, Emilia was safe. She remained unharmed.

“You are…?”

The sudden appearance of the person who had saved Emilia startled Subaru.

Despite his fearful heart rejecting any celebratory notion about her safety, Subaru called out shakily.

Hearing that, the man turned toward Subaru.

Then, he spoke.

“I came to retrieve her. I’m truly glad to have made it in time.”

“Wha-wait… what do you mean?”

“—It’s only natural to take the hand of the woman I am to make my wife.”

At the unexpected declaration, Subaru gaped in disbelief.

As he gasped, the young man with white hair smiled softly,

“I am the Archbishop of Sin, in charge of ‘Greed.’ —Regulus Corneas.”

He spoke without a hint of hesitation, laying out his facts plainly.

“As promised— I shall take her as my seventy-ninth wife.”

“`

 

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