—Even though Subaru had steeled himself and charged in, the instant he saw the waves of emotion surfacing in those glistening eyes, he realized he was being overtaken by bitter regret.
What he'd just said was, without question, an act of prying open the wound in
The searing pain she felt Subaru could not help but feel as phantom pain himself.
"I, um… I heard from everyone that the Trial in the Tomb shows you the past."
"—!"
Even so, Subaru pressed deeper, reaching for whatever lay beyond that pain.
A tremor ran through Emilia's expression as she bit down on her lip, and her quivering eyes remained locked on Subaru, refusing to look away.
Subaru held back from directly revealing that he himself had undergone the Trial. He couldn't make a careless claim like "if I could do it, so can you," and besides, right now he'd been stripped of his qualifications. She could easily think he was offering empty lies as consolation.
Rather than all that, he should simply convey the sincerity of his feelings for Emilia.
"That's why I think the reason you ended up turning back is just that. You agonized, you suffered, and you probably bottled it all up inside on your own… and I know that tonight, too, you're planning to take on the Trial again."
"——"
Across the four repeated worlds, Emilia had never once come to Subaru for help with the contents of the Trial. That was partly because Subaru had half-dismissed her right to challenge it—assuming she didn't need him to guide her through it—and partly because Emilia herself had never found the opportunity to confide in him.
The first problem was now resolved, since Emilia was the only one who could take on the Trial. And the second problem was being settled at this very moment.
Listening to Subaru's voice, Emilia's cheeks stiffened and her face began to droop.
Before those long-lashed eyes could turn away completely, Subaru continued.
"Even so—"
"—"
"When the burden you're carrying is so heavy it feels like it'll crush you, won't you let me share even a little of it? If the past you're afraid to look back on is really that terrifying, won't you let me stand beside you as you face it?"
The tilt of her bowing head came to a halt, and she looked up at Subaru again—tentatively, as though afraid.
He couldn't let his own weakness, his own insecurity, be reflected in those eyes. Subaru raised his chest and met Emilia's gaze with confidence that had no basis whatsoever.
Groundless confidence and bravado—he was a natural at putting on that act.
"When I think about it, I still don't really know a thing about you, Emilia. I love you. That's partly because I'm crazy about the way you look, but also because the person you are inside—the person I've gotten to know in the time we've spent together—drives me absolutely wild."
"—"
"I can say with my chest held high that I love the you who exists right now. But what experiences led you to become who you are, what you thought and felt and went through along the way… I know nothing about any of it. I never thought I needed to, or that I even had the chance to learn. Because what matters more than the past is the present and the future. …But—"
"…But?"
"If right now you're at a point where you have no choice but to face your own past, and standing there alone terrifies you beyond endurance—then won't you give me the chance to stand beside you, to face together the turning point that made you who you are and everything you've had to overcome?"
The qualification to take on Emilia's hardships in her place—that had already been taken from him.
So if that was the case, Subaru wanted the qualification to be there supporting her when she was exhausted and on the verge of collapse, to let her lean on him.
It might be nothing more than a crutch, but there had to be a moment where even that small comfort would save someone's soul.
"—"
Subaru waited, tensely watching for Emilia's answer.
The flickering in her eyes conveyed the fierce struggle raging inside her. Hesitation and confusion, guilt and self-loathing—countless emotions warred within her slender frame, tearing and clawing to break free.
At last, Emilia spoke in a small voice.
"S-Subaru's presence is… well, just having you around helps me so much… so I can't keep imposing on you any further—"
"I don't consider anything I do for you a burden, Emilia. Being able to do something for you is a blessing for me. When you're in trouble and you wish someone would reach out a hand, I want to be the first one to offer mine. That's what I think."
"—!"
When Emilia tried to reject Subaru's proposal with that feeble voice, he told her once more.
As long as Emilia didn't genuinely refuse, Subaru had no intention of backing down. He was fully aware that he was treading into territory she didn't want to discuss. Even if she tried to put up a halfhearted defense, Subaru's resolve would not waver.
His resolve hadn't been half-baked when he'd slammed that contract down in front of Roswaal, and it wouldn't be now.
Emilia, still caught in conflict, squeezed her eyes shut tight and looked down.
"Subaru is…"
"—"
"Subaru, you believe in me…"
The words that should have followed never came. Just before she could finish, her own dignity rejected that cowardly conclusion.
There was no more disgraceful act than to doubt the trust of someone who was sincerely reaching out to you.
That was exactly what Subaru had once been unable to hold back, hurling at Emilia in his selfishness.
Even pushed to the brink, Emilia's spirit remained noble.
And so Subaru did not ask her to repeat those words or dig into what she'd left unsaid. Emilia, as if lamenting her own unfinished sentence, let her shoulders drop and said: "…Ask me, Subaru. Ask what you want to know."
"……"
"Because from my own mouth, it'll probably come out as nothing but a disjointed mess. …So, pull it out of you yourself."
"…Is that really okay?"
"—Yeah. Because I think that, too, will be another one of my Trials."
At the sound of that resigned voice and the fragile smile that accompanied it, Subaru momentarily lost his words.
Then, as if shaking himself back to his senses, he tilted his head and pointed at the bed to change the mood.
"Anyway, this might be a long story, so how about we sit down?"
"…Right."
Emilia straightened her posture and sat on the edge of the bed. Subaru dragged a chair over and sat down in front of her, facing her head-on.
Smoothing out the wrinkles in her somewhat disheveled clothes, Emilia waited for Subaru's words.
And as he was waited upon to speak, Subaru arrived at the crucial moment and hesitated for just a few seconds over what to ask first before finally forming the question.
"What kind of past did you see in the Tomb's Trial? From what I've heard from others who've experienced it, the stories say it's something like… a memory of your deepest regrets."
Carefully choosing his words so he wouldn't give away that he'd experienced it himself, Subaru posed the question.
The first Trial was to confront one's own past. But the past Subaru had seen wasn't exactly a "past that had actually happened." For him, it had used the family from his original world—the very proof of his regrets—and the guilt of his past sins themselves as its stage, with an entirely new performance written on top.
So then, what form had the Trial taken for Emilia?
In response to Subaru's question, Emilia licked her dry lips once to moisten them, then said: "The past I… the past I saw was probably… the memories from before I went to sleep, I think."
"—? Before you went to sleep…?"
"Yeah, before I went to sleep. The memories are hazy and not very clear, but… I was still small when I saw them, so that must be it."
As Emilia spoke with her eyes closed, as though searching through her memories in a posture of confession, Subaru felt bewildered.
He understood the meaning of "smaller version of myself." If the Trial projected the past, then depending on how far back it went, one might find oneself face-to-face with early childhood.
But the expression "before going to sleep"—that, Subaru couldn't grasp.
"Wait. What do you mean, 'before you went to sleep'? Is that different from normal sleep at night?"
"Yeah, it's different. 'Before I went to sleep' means… before I spent a long, long time sleeping inside the ice, in the great tree in the forest. So it's a really, really long time ago."
"Inside the ice…? Emilia, what are you talking about?"
The context was so disjointed it almost seemed deliberate, and yet Subaru's imagination was enough to send icy claws scraping down his spine.
Feeling impatience hammer against his chest, Subaru struggled to maintain his composure as he said: "Tell me, Emilia. What do you mean, inside the great tree, inside the ice?"
"…Exactly what it sounds like."
"—"
After a beat, Emilia looked up at Subaru and told him.
"I was frozen inside the ice, together with the great tree in the forest.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "—I finally found you."
—Who are you?
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. For leaving you alone—I'm truly sorry. I was looking for you the whole time. Always, always, I kept searching and searching for you."
—Where am I? It's so cold…
"I'll get you out right away. In a place this lonely, all by yourself… why did this happen to this child? Why was I so long… why did it take me so long…"
—Hey… who are you? Why are you crying?
"—Because you are the most precious thing to me. That's why I'm so, so happy to see you again."
—You're happy?
"That's right. I was… I was reborn, so I could see you again."
—Who are you?
"I'm… I'm your greatest ally. Your very strongest ally."
—Then… you're mine.
"—Yeah, that's right. So from this day forward, I'm your family. From this moment on, you will never be alone again. …I swear it."
—Really? Then that means…
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "I was… so incredibly happy."
Pressing her hand to her chest, Emilia recalled that moment of bliss.
Listening to her words, Subaru felt the inside of his mouth going rapidly dry.
Emilia had been sleeping inside the ice.
The Prayer Tree that had once stood in her homeland—she had been frozen along with its trunk, and had spent the span of time until Puck rescued her right there.
Just how long had that been…?
"Emilia. The place you lived—was it a place called the Elior Great Forest? A forest that's been frozen since ancient times, with the ice gradually spreading outward…?"
"Yeah, that's right. After I woke up, the forest was called the Ice Forest. …But before I went to sleep, when I was living there with everyone, it wasn't snowy at all. It was a bright place, surrounded by sunlight and green."
"Green… no, wait—'everyone'?"
It was a place he'd only heard bits and pieces about. Subaru didn't know what
"Everyone was everyone. We all lived together in the village in the forest… everyone was an elf."
"Elves… so that means Emilia's family was there too, right? Your mom and dad, and… maybe even brothers or sisters?"
"—"
When Subaru saw Emilia's eyes fill with grief at his words, he realized once again that he'd spoken without thinking.
Emilia had said it once before, hadn't she? That Puck—here by her side—was the only one who stood in for family, her only true family.
If he thought about it, it was obvious that her family had been lost in some way or another.
"Sorry… I didn't mean to—"
"It's fine. You're worried about me, Subaru. …But my family wasn't in the forest. Everyone in the village was kind to me, and they smiled at me… but there were no blood relatives I could call family in that forest."
"There weren't…? What about your parents…?"
At the question, Emilia quietly shook her head.
Then, as if distracting herself by touching something at her fingertips, she fiddled with the end of her braid.
"When I first became aware of myself, neither of them was there. At the time, I didn't really think it was strange… But there was someone like a mother. She was incredibly kind, and strong, and beautiful… someone like that existed."
"—"
"But she, and everyone else… when I fell asleep, they fell asleep the same way. Right now, inside the Elior Great Forest, there are still countless people who fell asleep and never woke up."
"—What!?"
Emilia's voice was flat, as though she had resolved to state nothing but the facts. Subaru's throat tightened at the content, but Emilia continued without registering his reaction.
"After I woke up, Puck and I have been watching over all those sleeping people together. I wanted to make sure that if someone ever woke up like I did, they wouldn't have to face everything alone with no understanding of what had happened… So I stayed there, the whole time."
"…Wait a second."
The sheer density of information in what she was telling him was too much for Subaru's mind to process.
What exactly had happened on the day Emilia first saw snow in the Elior Great Forest?
"As far as I know, the Elior Great Forest started freezing over—yes, a little over a hundred years ago. I heard that somewhere before, at the Royal Selection ceremony or something."
"Yeah. After I started studying at the mansion, I heard about it too and was really surprised."
"So what you're saying is, Emilia, you were there when the Elior Great Forest started freezing? Do you know what caused it?"
"—No, I don't know."
Shaking her head, Emilia denied Subaru's suggestion.
Her expression pained, she lowered her gaze as Subaru furrowed his brow.
"I really don't know. What happened that day… my memories aren't clear. I only remember that I was small, and that I was terribly frightened. But since I stayed asleep the whole time after that, even those memories are hazy…"
"You keep saying 'small'—how old were you back then?"
"…I think I was about seven years old."
"Seven… Elves count age the same way humans do, right?"
Emilia nodded at Subaru's question.
A straightforward system—adding one year for each passing year. Elves were famously long-lived, and Emilia, as a half-elf, was no exception. That said, even long-lived elves had a period when they were freshly born, and there was no way to fault a seven-year-old child.
By simple calculation, Emilia was currently somewhere around a hundred and seven years old.
"That kind of age gap isn't something worth worrying about at this point. The other person's from another world—there's no sense stressing about that."
"…Subaru, is something wrong? Did I say something strange?"
"No, no. I was just thinking about how there's actually a bit of an age gap between you and me, that's all."
Using the exchange as a way to sort his thoughts and refresh the atmosphere, Subaru tossed in a light quip. Whether or not Emilia caught his intent, she loosened the tension in her cheeks and let out a small breath with a quiet, "That's true."
"But I wasn't conscious for most of the time I was asleep, so I don't really feel as mature as my actual age…"
"Is that so? I don't really know how fast elves grow, but if you measure against the human scale, I'd say you've grown plenty."
Catching sight of Emilia sitting on the bed, Subaru glanced at her casually and brushed off her concern with a snort.
Her limbs had lengthened fully, and her figure carried the contours of a woman. Her violet eyes, clouded with melancholy, and her delicate features gave her an ethereal beauty that straddled the boundary between girl and woman.
Emilia had grown into womanhood—more than enough.
But Subaru's assessment didn't quite match what Emilia was actually worried about.
She shook her head. "That's not it."
"The ice that put me to sleep didn't stop time—it only put my consciousness to sleep. So my body kept growing properly the whole time I was in there. For a while after I woke up, my body didn't move the way I expected at all—I made so many mistakes."
"That kind of ice… so that's what it did."
If the body of a small seven-year-old had transformed into a fully grown one by the time she woke up, that would have been profoundly disorienting.
In manga and anime, there were plenty of scenarios where a child's body rapidly aged into an adult's, but there was no way anyone could adapt to that so easily. When the brain's perception didn't match, of course you'd struggle—the way Emilia had.
"After Roswaal took me out of the forest and I started studying outside… I was shocked to learn I'd been asleep for nearly a hundred years. That long."
"If you age normally inside, then anyone besides an elf or some other long-lived species locked in the same ice would be done for—"
— Subaru started to say, then stopped, as if struck by the realization that he'd just heard something extraordinary.
Closing his eyes, Subaru silently worked through the numbers in his head. He calculated—addition and subtraction, then checked again several times over, converting his question into a certainty.
"Emilia. You just said you were asleep for nearly a hundred years, right?"
"Yes, that's right…?"
"And before you went to sleep, you were about seven?"
"Mm, that's right. Subaru, what are you—"
"Emilia. How many years has it been since Puck woke you up?"
At the very least, Roswaal bringing her out of the forest seemed to have happened within the last six months, based on what Subaru had heard. Before that, Emilia had been living with Puck in the Elior Great Forest. The question was the span of time between when she'd fallen asleep, awakened, and met Roswaal.
Emilia pressed a finger to her lip, her expression troubled.
"…Probably about seven years, or maybe six…"
"—"
Hearing Emilia's answer, the doubt that had taken root in Subaru's mind solidified into conviction.
And that truth rippled through his entire body like a shockwave.
Born, reached the age of seven, then slept for roughly a hundred years, and woke up seven years ago.
That meant the following.
—Emilia's true age was approximately one hundred and seven. Her apparent age was eighteen. And her mental age was fourteen.
"True age, apparent age, mental age… all of them are different…"
An impossible triple age discrepancy made possible only because she was an elf.
Suddenly, so many of Emilia's past behaviors made sense.
For someone who had lived over a century, she was remarkably inept at flattery; her interpersonal experience belied her appearance; and there were times when her childlike gestures and attitudes stood out as particularly endearing.
All of that was the consequence of having spent the majority of her life frozen inside ice.
"Fourteen… she's no different from
Why did a girl that young have to bear such an enormous burden? His frustration with the Royal Selection system and with Roswaal only deepened.
And then—reflecting that he'd inadvertently gone off-topic in his attempt to lighten the atmosphere—Subaru steered toward a subject that was anything but unrelated.
"You said you don't know why the forest was frozen. So then—what did you see in the Trial? Those hazy memories from before you were frozen—wasn't that what appeared?"
"…Yes, I think so. The scenery I saw in the Trial—those are surely the memories of that time that truly existed, before I went to sleep."
"Then the fact that you were so frightened by it means that the incomprehensible something that froze you and the other elves was right there waiting, and you're subconsciously rejecting it—"
"—That's not it."
"Because what else is there to be afraid of? The Trial is supposed to show a person their deepest regret. If that's the case, what you saw must be—"
"I told you that's not it—!"
The logic had assembled itself in his mind, and Subaru's words had gained unintended heat. But Emilia's cry scattered it all to pieces.
She blinked immediately, regretting that she'd raised her voice, but then squeezed her eyes shut as if to shake off her own hesitation, and turned a tear-streaked face toward Subaru.
"What I… what I saw in the Trial wasn't anything like that. I didn't see anything like that. …What I, what I saw was…"
"E-Emilia…"
"—A demon child."
A chill and a sharpness, like an icicle driven into his spine, pierced through Subaru's back.
Emilia covered her face with both hands, hiding her expression. From behind that concealment, her quiet voice continued on, emptied of emotion.
"The seed of catastrophe. The silver abomination. A life that should never have been born. The source of hatred. A soul that must never be forgiven. A demon. —The
"—"
"Everyone who had been kind to me, everyone who had smiled at me—in the cold snow, they said those things to me, and then…"
Click, click—Emilia's limbs, her whole body, trembled in fine, rapid spasms.
The past she'd left behind on the other side of sleep, the past she'd been forced to confront in the Trial. The naked malice of it—remembering it now sent unbearable grief crashing through her.
"After that, I don't remember anything, even inside the ice. But everyone… everyone must still remember cursing me inside the ice. They've stayed that way the whole time, still carrying that curse."
"—"
"That's why I wanted to get everyone out of the ice… and then, I wanted to apologize."
With tears threatening to spill, Emilia raised her face as though looking at people who weren't there, and bowed her head quietly. And then: "I'm sorry for causing you trouble. —I love all of you."