Felt took the notes Gojo had given her and left, full of confidence, ready to face the nobles and merchants.
Gojo yawned, stepped out of his own room, and made his way to Subaru's door. He knocked.
"Subaru."
"What's up, Satoru?"
The door swung open, and Gojo walked in.
The bed was made neat and smooth, and a book sat on the desk beside it.
"I figured you'd be getting ready to sleep by now."
Gojo drifted over for a closer look, mildly surprised to find it was a primer. The kind used for learning to read and write.
"When did you start caring about this stuff?"
He picked the book up, turning it over with a puzzled expression.
"Because I want to get better at something, too."
Subaru rubbed the back of his head, a little sheepish.
"You mean you want to be more useful to Emilia."
Gojo dropped onto Subaru's bed, cutting straight to the heart of it.
"I mean, that's not not part of it."
Subaru let out a small laugh. "Shame I can't be like you, Satoru. I don't have that kind of power."
"You're greedy, you know that? The Witch of Envy already dotes on you. That little gift she left on you is stronger than most Sin Archbishops."
"If that's what being doted on looks like, I'd rather pass."
"Idiot. Without it, you'd have died however many times by now. You'd be Mabeast food already."
"Fair point, I guess."
Subaru muttered it, then eyed Gojo. "Satoru, you didn't come over just to tell me that, did you?"
"Do I look like someone with that much free time?"
Gojo sat up on the bed. "I came to pull you into your favorite activity."
"My favorite activity?"
Subaru looked lost.
"Yeah. You're telling me you don't enjoy going to see Emilia?"
At Emilia's name, Subaru's eyes lit up.
"We're going to see Emilia? Now?"
"What for?"
"She's got to help us with something small. Figured you'd want in, so here I am. What, not interested..."
"I'm going! Obviously I'm going."
Subaru didn't hesitate for an instant. Where Emilia was concerned, he never did.
"Let's move."
Gojo didn't bother bringing anyone else along. The two of them set off for Roswaal's mansion.
At the door, Rem greeted them. Their showing up this late seemed to throw her a little.
"Is something the matter, to have you come by at this hour?"
"If you're looking for Master Roswaal, he isn't at the mansion..."
She didn't wait for them to speak first, offering the information on her own.
"No, no. We have no interest in Roswaal."
Subaru shook his head, flat and immediate.
In Subaru's book, Roswaal had long since crossed into the territory of untrustworthy.
"We're here to see Emilia."
"Though of course, I've missed Rem's desserts, too."
Gojo smiled at her, slipping the comment in lightly.
"I'll fetch Lady Emilia for you."
Rem's face didn't shift at Gojo's teasing. Calm, unruffled.
A short while later Emilia arrived in the parlor, still in her nightwear.
"Subaru?"
"And Satoru. What brings you two here?"
She looked as surprised as Rem had been.
"Actually, we came because there's something we need your help with."
Gojo went straight to the point.
"Help?"
"What with?"
"If it's something I can do..."
Without hesitating, Emilia took a seat and leaned forward, curious.
"You know about the White Whale, right?"
"The White Whale? That's one of the Three Great Mabeasts, if I remember correctly..."
She blinked, reading the odd looks on their faces.
"What? Did I get it wrong?"
"No, you're right. But you haven't heard anything else about the White Whale recently?"
Subaru scratched his head, a little helpless.
"I don't think so."
She shook her head. "After the conference ended, you told me to stay in the mansion and wait for word. So I haven't gone anywhere. Rem's been with me the whole time."
Something warm moved through Subaru's chest at that.
Her position being what it was, and his being what it was, she'd still listened. She'd taken his warning and kept to it.
"Right. So the thing is..."
Riding the wave of that feeling, he launched into the story of the Sin Archbishops and the White Whale.
The question of how they'd known, of course, had to be finessed. They'd agreed on the cover story before leaving: Meili had been out looking for a suitable Mabeast, and they'd stumbled across it that way.
When she heard that Gojo and the others had taken down the White Whale, Emilia's reaction was no more than mild surprise.
But when they moved on to the Witch Cult group near Arlam Village, her eyes went wide.
"The villagers, are they all safe?"
She knew that ordinary people tended to regard her with a certain wariness, her appearance being what it was, and she didn't blame them for it. Still, at heart, she couldn't bear the thought of innocent people suffering for her sake. Being dragged into any of this.
Especially because of her.
"They're fine. The village is safe."
"The Witch Cult never made it there. We handled them first."
Subaru rushed the reassurance out, keen to put her worry to rest.
"Good. That's a relief."
She pressed a hand to her chest, the tension bleeding out of her shoulders.
A moment later, the light in her face dimmed again.
The conference had barely ended, and the Witch Cult was already moving against her. Roswaal had mentioned the possibility before, so it wasn't as though she'd been caught completely flat-footed. His departure from the mansion had been tied to exactly this sort of thing.
But the speed of it. If Gojo and the others hadn't been there, the people of the village and Ram, left behind at the mansion, would likely have been killed.
"Don't worry, Emilia. The Witch Cult took a heavy hit this time. Two Sin Archbishops, both dealt with."
"The rest of them won't be moving openly any time soon."
Subaru read the drift of her thoughts and spoke up quickly.
"Yeah, relax, Emilia. Roswaal isn't going to sit on his hands on this."
Gojo, casual as ever. The lands and the people living on them were, after all, Mathers family property.
However disengaged Roswaal liked to look, he wasn't about to let that slide.
"Setting that aside. We were hoping you could freeze the White Whale meat for us."
"It all came together in a hurry, so we've had to stash it in a warehouse for now."
"Setting up a partnership with a trading company takes time."
"Drag this out too long and the meat's going to spoil..."
"I understand. Leave that part to me."
Emilia nodded without a flicker of hesitation.
"If it weren't for the two of you, I'd probably be in the Witch Cult's hands right now."
"You didn't just save the village. You saved me, too."
"Something this small, I'm glad to do it."
"No need to be so formal. We're friends."
With the matter of preserving the meat settled, Emilia hurried off to change, since walking out in her sleepwear wasn't an option.
No sooner had she left than Rem stepped in.
"Have you come to bring us desserts, Rem? That would be very moving of you. I've honestly been missing..."
"Subaru. How did you know what the Witch Cult was going to do?"
Rem came into the parlor and spoke plainly, without prelude.
She'd been standing quietly outside the door during their conversation, listening.
The village was safe. Her sister had not been caught up in it.
But.
She couldn't understand how Subaru could speak of these events like a man who'd already seen them, warning Emilia about every detail.
Without his warning, Emilia's plan had them leaving the mansion on the day the conference ended. They would have walked straight into the Witch Cult.
Without Roswaal present, an encounter with the Witch Cult was, for all practical purposes, a death sentence.
Rem's feelings about the Witch Cult, rooted in what had happened in her childhood, ran dark. Deep loathing, deep hatred.
When Subaru and Gojo had first come to the mansion, if not for Roswaal's explicit orders, she'd have moved against them. The scent of the Witch on both of them was too thick to ignore.
Even now, if they hadn't spent this much time together, if she didn't know they'd taken out two Sin Archbishops of the Witch Cult, she'd have started questioning them in earnest.
"That's a secret of our faction. My apologies, Rem. I can't share it with you."
"But you don't need to worry. Neither of us bears any ill will toward you or Emilia. In fact, this idiot is so obvious about how he feels about her, I don't think anyone could miss it."
Gojo said it with a light laugh, brushing the matter aside.
"If you're still uneasy, come with us. Or have Reinhard come along, if you'd rather."
"He's the Sword Saint. That ought to count for something."
Subaru didn't match Gojo's ease. Watching Rem, a small ache sat in his chest.
From where he stood, they'd spent enough time together by now to be friends. There ought to have been some basic trust.
The way she'd come at them hit harder than he'd expected.
Rem held his gaze for a long moment, then lifted the hem of her skirt in a small curtsy.
"My apologies. With Master Roswaal away, protecting Lady Emilia is my responsibility..."
"It's fine. Nothing to apologize for."
Gojo waved her off, making it clear he took no offense.
"If you don't mind, please have a Dragon Carriage readied. We can leave as soon as Emilia's changed."
"Yes. I'll see to it now."
Rem turned and left without another word.
Subaru watched her go, pressing his lips together. "Satoru, after everything we've done..."
"Shh."
Gojo raised a single finger, cutting him off.
"When you decide to do something, you stop worrying about everything else. You stop watching people's reactions, stop caring what they think, stop letting it get to you."
"The only thing you do is hold the line on what you believe in."
"I don't know what you've been through, but in terms of sheer will, you've got an edge on almost anyone."
"I doubt there's a single other person in this world who can die over and over and come back intact the way you can."
"Sounds rough, I'm sure. But that's your greatest asset."
"Every death tempers your will. Makes it harder."
"So whatever Rem reacts like, whatever attitude she takes, don't let it shake you."
It wasn't often that Gojo spoke to Subaru like this.
Subaru, who'd been on the verge of grumbling, went quiet.
After thinking it through, he nodded, slow.
"Got it."
"One more thing."
Gojo's eyes stayed on his. "That line you said. 'After everything we've done.'"
"The only people who know about any of it are you and me. Nobody else has any idea. Doing it or not doing it, that's your call."
"Using it to blame other people doesn't hold up."
"And if you don't get out of that habit, then later, after you've gone through however many loops trying to help Emilia, the resentment will pile up. The thinking turns extreme."
What was a Cursed Spirit, after all?
A Cursed Spirit was human negative emotion given form.
Gojo had dealt with more Cursed Spirits than he could count, and met no small number of Curse Users along the way.
Every one of them had something in common.
They were steeped in negative emotion.
It meant that when it came to that kind of darkness, he knew a little more about it than the average person did.
"Eventually, you'd end up pinning the whole thing on Emilia. Even though all of it was your own choice. Your own wanting."
Subaru's expression went grave. That Gojo was around his own age didn't stop him from taking it in. He wasn't about to shrug off advice this honest.
Footsteps in the corridor.
Only then did Subaru surface from his own thoughts.
"Thanks, Satoru. If you hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have even noticed the cracks forming."
"Well, I don't want to babysit you later when you've snapped and start spiraling."
"That'd wear me out. And you know I'm just here for the good life."
Gojo got to his feet and stretched.
"Anyway. Emilia's here. Let's get moving."
No sooner had he finished than there was a knock at the door, followed by her voice.
"Subaru, Satoru. I'm ready."
...
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