Chapter 38: Wait

—The whole situation surrounding Kugelschreiber Castle had changed.

Hearing it from Tiga's own mouth, Subaru and the others caught their breath. The castle had crossed through space. That could only mean it had broken free of its hidden pocket dimension and returned to the real world for the first time in centuries. However, that—

"Looks like this caught your side off guard too."

"...Nah, who's to say? Maybe that's exactly what we want you to think. Trusting what you see with your own eyes too much is your bad habit, My Friend. I've been telling you that forever, haven't I?"

"Lord Subaru, there's a wind of lies..."

"Shh! Crusch, shh! I'm in the middle of some high-level mind games here!"

"High-level, nothing. Not even close. I'm not falling for that one. ...Still, I'll be honest: when somebody tells me I've forgotten something, it does give me a little jolt."

Having taken stock of their reactions, Tiga let his gaze slide to Subaru's side, to Melty, who stood there and was still watching him. The look Melty fixed on Tiga was loaded with meaning, full of hope and heat. And she had called him by name, so there was no doubt the two of them had some kind of history.

"So, that seems to go for you too... Black Dog, what's the backstory with that little spirit?"

"Nothing, nada, not one teeny-tiny bit, I don't reeemember iiit! Sorry, wee little spirit I don't know, my bad, so sad, I'm sorry!"

"...Yeah, sure. Don't worry."

Like Melty, the Black Dog came with baggage, apparently some unusual tie to the squirrel-looking spirit perched on Tiga's shoulder and glaring their way. The Black Dog's attitude was what it was, but two months of experience told Subaru it probably wasn't a lie. Frankly, the sheer amount of information being crammed into his head was making it spin, but now that Bellaris, the cause of all that spinning, had gone quiet, he couldn't use it as an excuse to stop thinking. Right now, apart from the Black Dog, who was fine, and Crusch, who was more or less fine, their fighting strength consisted of Subaru, Ferris and Melty, all of them half dead. Even those first two weren't at full strength after their wounds and exhaustion, so pushing too hard was out of the question. Still, the dice weren't entirely without a winning face for them. And to roll it—

"Now then, there's five of us, and just two of you, even if we count the little spirit on your shoulder. On numbers alone, we've got you more than two to one. Overwhelming advantage. If you're gonna surrender, now's your chance."

"...Are my ears playin' tricks on me, I wonder? That one's tossin' that at us on headcount alone, never mind what a wreck they all are, I'll have you know!"

"Your ears are fine, Pooka. My Friend's just that kind of guy. Though I'll admit even I'm surprised he skipped right over the whole half-dead part."

"Your side's got more people seriously injured. That's another point in our favor."

"When you say that so proudly with a hole in your back, I almost believe you."

With that, Tiga shrugged, looking like he had no intention whatsoever of believing it; acting was clearly not among his talents. For now, they had learned that the squirrel-ish spirit's name was Pooka, and that the enemy was willing to keep talking. That much was a gain. Even so, as this overtime of small talk, which could hardly be called negotiation, dragged on, Crusch and the Black Dog both sensed a fight was coming, and their fighting spirit crept steadily higher—

"—Ngh! Whaddaya standin' around chattin' fooor! Do it, dooo it! Finish 'em, Executor! That's what you're here for, ain't iiit!"

But the one who had lost patience even faster than Subaru and the others, and shouted, was Reborn. Leaning on his single-bladed shears for support, Reborn had been blinded by Crusch's sword and could no longer use the sight-dependent power of "Silent." Even so, he bellowed at Tiga by sense of presence alone, demanding that he do the job he'd come running here to do. Hearing that, Subaru wet his dry lips with his tongue, wishing the guy would keep his ideas to himself.

"...Honestly, if he just skips the talking and charges, we're screwed."

Even with the hold of "Silent" and "Ring Finger" broken, and Subaru's mouth and brain spinning at their usual speed again, that alone couldn't possibly overturn the decisive gap in power. The cheat combo of "Cor Leonis" × "Blue" let him back up the others in a fight, but there was no guarantee how long it would last. Which was why the most troublesome thing Tiga could do right now was simply come at them with brute force—

"Hurry up an' do these guys—"

"—Tornel, I know you can hear me. 'Detour,' full power. We're pulling out."

"Wha...!"

But Tiga's next words betrayed both Subaru's fear and Reborn's demand. After giving his order by name to the third of the "Beloved Children," who wasn't even present, Tiga spun on his heel and closed the distance to Reborn, who had turned his bleeding face toward him. Then he slammed the pommel of his drawn curved sword into the back of Reborn's neck as he stood there.

"Kh."

"Told you, time's up. Besides, it's your own fault for jumping the gun without waiting for orders."

Tiga caught the small body as it crumpled with a short groan, slung it easily over his shoulder, and spat out the words. Then he turned to face Subaru and the others, who were staring at him in shock.

"You heard me. We're pulling out and taking the brat with us. That's it for today."

"Whoa whoa whoa, that's a pretty, awfully selfish take, isn't it? You come barging in, stomping all over, toss out a riddle and then it's bye-bye? Leave your life behind, and your answers too!"

"Wh-what a crude, savage way to talk, I'll say! That thing's s'posed to be my contractor? I can't believe it, not one bit! You tricked me, didn'tcha!?"

"Don't know, don't care, you silly little dummy! Hug your baggage and burn out, burning!"

The Black Dog capped off the exchange at the top of his voice, and a hellish blaze erupted from his outthrust palm. The green fire spread sideways like the breath of a Dragon, cutting off every escape for Tiga and the fuming spirit perched on his shoulder. At this completely unexpected outrage, Subaru almost let out a yelp of "You idi—!", but a louder voice rose from Melty beside him. It wasn't a scream, though.

"Don't! Fire doesn't work on Pooka!"

"Huhhh!?"

The Black Dog made a dubious noise at her certain cry. And the truth of her words was proven when the green fire reached Tiga and the spirit and was devoured head-on. At the heart of the onrushing green flames, exactly the part that would have struck Tiga and Pooka was neatly bitten away and gone. The one who did it was Pooka, licking her lips. The cute-looking spirit lightly wiped her mouth with a front paw.

"Looks like that girl knows her stuff, I'll say. That I'm a Great Spirit of fire."

"If you knew it, if you got it, then say so! What, showing off your bad-girl side right now? Real dedicated to your self-branding, huh!"

"You attacked without warning! More importantly—"

Snapping back at the Black Dog's unfair complaint, Melty turned her eyes to Tiga beyond the parted flames. As if that were his cue, Tiga, still carrying Reborn, sprang lightly backward, and on the way he stretched out an arm and scooped Bellaris up off the ground where she lay.

"You're alive, right? Spread your 'Ring Finger' around. Don't hold back. It won't work on me anyway."

"...Oh, my? Does that mean... you trust me, you love me? I love you too...!"

However stubborn she was, Bellaris answered Tiga's words with love yet again, having learned nothing. Next came a sweet scent drifting through the air, one that inflamed the mind and stole away sanity. Bellaris's "Ring Finger" had activated, and once more the particles that made emotions break down filled the air.

"Ferris! I'm about to be in trouble, so please deal with it, yahoo!"

"Nnngh, you already are! Hold still, stop thrashing! I can't treat you!"

Subaru triggered the combo of taking everyone's mental effects onto himself with the power of "Cor Leonis" and having Ferris treat them, and somehow held his ground. But even while they were dealing with it, Tiga, with Bellaris over his shoulder like a sack of rice, was making for the exit with the two defeated "Beloved Children" in tow. Crusch and the Black Dog each moved to stop him, but—

"I won't letcha get in the way!"

"—!"

Pooka puffed out her cheeks with a roar and spat back the Black Dog's fire she'd just eaten. Green flames swept toward the two who had tried to chase Tiga. Crusch cleaved through them with an upward slash and plunged through the curtain of fire, only to slam full force into the Black Dog. "Ah!?" "Whoa!?" Their startled cries overlapped as the unexpected collision sent them both sprawling. It was not a rerun of the infighting the "Ring Finger" had caused.

"—Why!? Where'd Tiga go!?"

Beyond Crusch and the Black Dog, who had tripped over each other, Subaru had lost sight of Tiga too. It had happened right after Pooka's fire blocked his view for an instant and hid Tiga from sight. The one who should have been right there was gone, and Subaru doubted his own eyes. But he wasn't the only one who had lost track of Tiga. Ferris, pressed close against Subaru despite his missing arms, was blinking in confusion too: "Huh? Huh?" Subaru could feel Ferris's healing power as closely as it was possible to feel it. Which meant this wasn't the effect of Bellaris's "Ring Finger" but—

"—'Detour'! Isn't it just supposed to get people lost!?"

"Detour" had split up the team inside the castle and made it so hard to regroup afterward, and its caster still hadn't shown themselves. If it could do more than throw off a person's sense of direction, if it could disrupt their perception as well, then their gaze and attention had been sent on a "Detour", and that was how they'd lost sight of Tiga. And so, helpless, they were about to let Tiga slip away as he ran along the edges of their awareness—

"Wait!"

In that instant, Melty raised her thin voice and planted herself in the way, striking staff in hand. She had barely snagged at the edge of Subaru's vision; when he forced his head toward her and fought against "Detour," he saw Melty standing before the door out of the basement, squaring off against the oncoming Tiga. With a "Beloved Child" under each arm and both hands full, Tiga's gaze sharpened.

"Get out of the way! You'll get hurt!"

"If I do, you'll have to take responsibility!"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Tiga's eyes went wide at the answer from the girl blocking his path. The distance between them kept closing, and just when it looked like Melty would pay the price for her recklessness—

"Tch! Pooka!" "Keep a good tight grip on those two, y'hear!"

At the call, Pooka sprang from Tiga's shoulder and ballooned all at once, going from twenty-centimeter size to a big size of nearly five meters before their eyes. Her round tail, grown in proportion, swung around, caught Tiga softly in the back, and sent him flying forward.

"—Ah, Tiga!"

Tiga sailed in an arc over the head of Melty, whose round eyes had gone wide. She reached out on reflex, but her hand couldn't reach him, not with the momentum and height he'd gained.

"See ya."

"Tigaaa!!"

Leaving behind only a single crossing of glances, Tiga shot off like an arrow from his very first step after landing, leaving Melty behind as she screamed with everything she had. His feet didn't stop. "Detour" let nothing catch up to his receding back.

"Wait! I said wait, Tiga! Tigaaa!"

No matter how many times she screamed, her voice didn't reach him, and neither did her outstretched hand. The distance between them grew and grew, and eventually even the fading footsteps were gone. Behind him, the giant Pooka also broke apart into motes of mana and vanished, following after the departed Tiga.

"Damn it, he totally..."

Got away. That was the ending Subaru couldn't bring himself to finish saying, and he had no choice but to accept it as the battle result for this skirmish with the "Beloved Children" in Kugelschreiber Castle.

△▼△▼△▼△

—Thanks to Tiga Rauleon and Pooka barging in, the outcome of the fight had been thoroughly muddled.

Honestly, there was no other way to put it: Tiga had gotten the better of them. Reliable information or not, if they'd taken custody of the two they'd defeated, they surely could have gotten at least a little closer to the hidden secrets of the "Beloved Children." Even failing that, they'd have whittled down a troublesome enemy's strength. But with the two taken back, all of that had gone down the drain.

"Then again, if the fight had kept going, we're probably the ones who'd have been in trouble. I never thought Tiga'd turn out to be a spirit arts user. He totally had me fooled."

"...No, that's not it. Tiga isn't a spirit arts user. As far as I know, he and Pooka are only together, that's all..."

"Without a contract, you mean? So something like Anastasia and Echidna... But then, what kind of relationship do those two have?"

"That's... I'm sorry. I don't know. Only that it isn't a contract."

Melty's answer, given as she clutched her collapsed striking staff and hung her head, was vague. Yet to Subaru it didn't seem like the vagueness of lies or evasion. Melty probably really didn't know the details of what was between Tiga and Pooka. But when it came to her and Tiga, that should be another story.

"...I'll tell you about it later, I promise. But for now..."

"I know. Figuring out what's going on with Kugelschreiber Castle and meeting up with Beako and the others comes first... Ferris! Your arms! Are they gonna attach properly?!"

"I'm concentrating, so don't talk to me! I'm numbing the pain, so my hands get shaky!"

"Shaky hands, huh? Your hands are the part that came off..."

Ferris, snapping back in a high voice, was right in the middle of retrieving his own arms, which had been pinned to the wall, everything below the elbows where they'd been cut, and reattaching them with healing magic. Even Subaru hadn't planned on things going as far as getting his arms chopped off, so if Ferris's arms didn't come back, he'd have to spend his whole life taking responsibility. When he'd said something to that effect, though, he'd gotten another look of deathly disgust.

"Besides, if anyone should spend a lifetime atoning, I believe it should be me, since I was the one who actually cut them off."

"I feel pretty responsible for making you do it, too. What about you, Crusch? How's your body holding up?"

"I have no major wounds. I can still—"

Keep going, she'd probably meant to say. But in spite of the will behind that reply, her body couldn't keep up with how Crusch felt. —She swayed, and her knees gave out. Subaru reached out on reflex and hurriedly caught her as she fell.

"Whoa, careful! You okay?"

"Wha...? Lord... Subaru..."

"Must be a side effect of the 'Dragon Eye.' You pushed yourself way too hard for us, Crusch."

"But I can still..."

"No, you can't push yourself. Rest for now. We'll make up the difference. Mostly the Black Dog, though."

Gazing at Crusch as she stirred weakly, Subaru gave that answer, and the Black Dog shot back a disgruntled "Whaaat?", which a single glare silenced. Then Subaru slipped the eyepatch out of Crusch's jacket pocket and gently fitted it over her left eye as her eyelids grew heavy.

"Let's talk again when you wake up. Like about the epic tale of Crusch Doing Her Very Best."

"...Yes."

She nodded as her consciousness faded, and the eye the patch didn't cover closed as well. Over these two months, whenever she'd had no choice but to rely on the power of the "Dragon Eye," she had always seemed stern and tense as she drifted off, drained. Now, to Subaru, the edge seemed to have gone out of her sleeping face, and that eased his mind a little.

"—Subaru."

Ferris was standing in front of Subaru as he shifted his grip on the sleeping Crusch. From both sleeves of his black suit extended the arms he'd lost, and he opened and closed his hands as if to show off how fully they'd healed. Seeing they'd been properly reattached was another relief.

"Honestly, it was way too gross for me to look at straight on... but you can fix that even from there, huh."

"Yeah. As long as the missing part is still around, and the person's Od hasn't forgotten its original state yet, I can fix it pretty much perfectly."

"I feel like you just casually said something insane, but anyway, I'm glad. ...That okay if I carry Crusch on my back? I've got the freest hands."

"—Mm, thanks. I hate you."

"A dere-tsun femboy is way too fresh a concept..."

Sure enough, the plan that had banked on Ferris had sent his affection meter plummeting. Considering it had probably been low to begin with, it was likely maxed out in the negatives by now, and Subaru was scared to ask. Even so, without Ferris, and without Crusch, driving off the "Beloved Children" would have been impossible. There was plenty of lingering emotional friction, but it was a result they'd all torn free by giving it their best.

"Even if Tiga went and smeared mud on it at the very end...!"

"U-um, I'm sorry. I'll apologize on Tiga's behalf..."

"Hah! Playing the goody-goody, what's with this 'on his behalf' stuff! Like that could ever fill the lonely-lonesome hole, no way, no how! So, what now?"

"First, quit pestering Melty. After that, like I said, we prioritize regrouping with Beako and the others. But we move carefully."

Tiga had withdrawn with the injured "Beloved Children," but the whereabouts of the still-unseen third one remained unknown, and there was a real chance ambushers were still lurking in the castle. Subaru and the others knew far too little about this castle to drop their guard on the assumption that they'd fully routed the enemy. All the more so now that the castle had burst out into the real world, above the clouds over the Lifaus Highway, and was drawing every eye around.

"I mean, the castle's supposedly Echidna-made. Knowing her, she might spring some trial to test any challengers who barge in, like you've gotta escape before the rocketing castle crashes."

"What's your take on her, anyway? She's Beatrice's mom, isn't she?"

"...Rotten to the core, but juuust short of Sin Archbishop level?"

Strictly speaking, in terms of sheer nastiness she wasn't much different from the Sin Archbishops, but she earned that rating because she was already dead and the damage couldn't spread any further. Then again, there was Sphinx, who'd gone on a rampage in the Vollakia Empire. Depending on what sins were still hidden, her rating could yet crash. Subaru looked around at his companions, each pulling a sour face at his answer.

"Anyway, keep a close eye on the floors and the walls. If we're out of that other space, there's probably no falling forever until we die, but..."

"—Ahh, word is you don't need to worry that much."

"—"

At the voice, which came almost as an ambush, Subaru spun around as if struck. He'd had more than enough of new intruders by now, but that panic and dread turned out to be unnecessary. Poking out of the stairwell connecting the basement to the upper floors was a familiar face—

"—Rachins! You made it!"

"Don't go casually calling me by name, is what I'd like to say, but... you lot are in shreds. Looks a hell of a lot worse than what the Librarian told me."

With that, Rachins, who had split off from them before the encounter with the "Beloved Children," looked over Subaru's group lined up in the basement. By the look of him, unlike Subaru and the others, who'd fought one brutal battle after another, Rachins showed no sign of having been dragged into anything rough. Apparently he'd lucked out and avoided running into the enemy, but...

"Mr. Russell... the Silver Fox? He was supposed to be with you, right?"

"He's fine, or more like, it was the guy's read on things that kept us from getting spotted by the enemy, apparently. We'd grabbed some documents and were heading back to the entrance when the entrance's value suddenly tanked, or something..."

"Value... the Blessing of Evaluation, huh. Didn't know you could use it like that..."

In other words, the value of the castle's entrance had crashed: Russell, the blessing's holder, had sensed it shift from something useful to him into something harmful. If he'd caught on to the anomaly at that point, then sure, he might well have managed to steer clear of the "Beloved Children." Honestly, Subaru would've liked a warning, but with them split up, there was no helping it. Better to just be glad nothing irreversible had happened somewhere Subaru and the others couldn't reach.

"I'd love to catch up and all, but, Mr. Long Tongue, things are pretty bad outside, aren't they?"

"Oh, right, yeah. Apparently the castle burst out of the other space or something. It might be a Witch's trap to catch every intruder in one go. We need to get out of here right now..."

"That ain't it. The one flyin' it is the Librarian, and the one who gave the order's the Silver Fox."

"—Beako and Mr. Russell?"

Pulled up short mid-panic, Subaru's eyes went round. A report that Beatrice and Russell were working on something together was surprising enough, and all the more so when that something was as flashy and secrecy-free as flying a castle. After two months working alongside "Six Tongues," Subaru had taken it as plain fact that Russell hated attention-grabbing stunts like that more than anything.

"They're both okay? What were they thinking, flying the castle? And what were you doing, didn't you stop them?"

"Quit rattlin' 'em off at me all at once, you're loud! If you care that much, stop standin' around yakkin' and go ask 'em yourself."

"Fair enough. Door Crossing?"

"It works. That's how I got here. Damn creepy magic, though."

Offering a verdict that would have had Beatrice puffing out her cheeks and stamping her feet, Rachins set off, leading the way for Subaru and the others. A few steps in, he stopped. "Oh yeah, right," he said, turning only his head to look back.

"That question from before, I'll answer just one bit of it... They're turnin' this castle into a base."

"Huh?"

"I'm sayin' that's the answer to what they were thinkin', flyin' the castle. Makin' it a base. If we're gonna take the Kingdom back for real, we can't keep runnin' and hidin' from place to place forever."

And so Rachins explained why Russell, a man who hated anything flashy, had flown the castle anyway.