"So? You're going to tell me what happened, and you're going to stop holding back."
Still holding hands, they left the park, and once
She wanted to stop walking and talk, but Subaru kept pulling her along by their still-linked arms.
"Subaru?"
"Sorry. Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to find somewhere with no one around and hash this out properly, but time isn't on our side. —We've got less than fifteen minutes left."
"…Understood. You can talk while we walk, then."
Beatrice caught the frustration etched on Subaru's profile and followed his lead without further protest.
Relieved by his partner's willingness to cooperate, Subaru marched on at a hurried pace, carefully unloading the jumbled contents of his head onto Beatrice bit by bit.
"The
"The Witch Cult…?"
Beatrice inhaled sharply. Subaru chose his words carefully as he continued.
The tricky part was the rules and penalties surrounding information disclosure in "Return by Death." If he kept the level of detail roughly on par with what he'd revealed to Rachins, then telling Beatrice shouldn't be a problem — or at least, he couldn't be sure of that, and that uncertainty was precisely the nasty grip of the demon's hand binding him.
That sinister force obstructing the disclosure of "Return by Death" didn't just evaluate the content of what Subaru was saying — it also seemed to assess the person he was telling before deciding whether to impose the penalty.
Otherwise, how could Emilia's heart be crushed to the verge of stopping when a secret was revealed to her? There was no other explanation.
So Subaru took meticulous care with every detail he shared with Beatrice.
If he were the one getting hurt, that would be bad enough. He was afraid. Yes, afraid — but he could endure it. He could stomach it. But if that demon's hand reached out toward Emilia or Beatrice, the guilt would destroy him.
Even if Subaru could take it, that sinister force would certainly show no mercy to anyone else.
"So, as always, you can't tell me where you learned all this?"
"…Sorry. I can't. It's impossible."
"That's fine. I'll believe you even without proof. You told me, Subaru — and that alone is all the reason Betty needs to believe."
Squeezing his hand back, Beatrice answered as Subaru berated himself for his inadequacy.
Feeling some measure of comfort in the warmth transmitted through their palms, Subaru searched for his next words.
Sirius. "Wrath." Sensory sharing. Soul-washing. He weighed the information he could convey and the possibilities, working to share even a fraction of the danger with Beatrice.
"First off, the Witch Cult member appearing is an Archbishop of Sin called 'Wrath,' and, well, she's a total pervert."
"If you think that's information worth conveying no matter what, then Betty thinks Subaru is beyond hopeless."
"I'm testing the waters to see what's safe to say. For now, let's skip the pervert penalty. Next is her ability… something about sharing emotions and sensations?"
"Sharing emotions and sensations?"
Beatrice tilted her head.
She probably couldn't form a clear mental image of it. That was understandable — even Subaru himself didn't have a firm grasp of how that Authority actually worked.
"It's hard to explain, but basically, when the Archbishop is ecstatically happy, everyone around her feels exactly the same way, no matter how angry they might actually be."
"…I'm not entirely sure how that constitutes a threat."
"The biggest danger is that you lose the ability to recognize danger for what it is. No matter what insane things she does, you can't muster any sense of crisis. You just accept it all with overwhelming joy. Think of it as having your situational awareness completely destroyed — does that make more sense?"
A crowd, arms raised in jubilant welcome, cheering for a boy who was screaming and begging not to die.
Being unable to feel anything other than joy toward everything happening right before your eyes — that was terror. In that state, the Subaru of those timelines would have eagerly awaited the blade at his neck right up until the moment it fell, deliriously happy.
"I understand the emotional sharing. But what does the sensory sharing do?"
"Exactly what it sounds like. If the other person feels pain, you feel it too. If you cut off the Archbishop's head, everyone watching loses theirs too. …It's an absolute nightmare, isn't it?"
Hearing himself spell it out again, Subaru was exasperated by just how troublesome it was.
Decapitate her and your own head flies off — put simply, it was hard to imagine a more discouraging ability when it came to killing. "Return by Death" let him devise strategies in advance, but if he went through the trouble of defeating her only for his side to be wiped out in the process, that was anything but satisfying.
"But even trying to capture her alive is risky — one touch and you could go crazy. Whether we keep her alive or kill her, she's the worst kind of enemy who inflicts damage on everyone involved."
During his second death, Subaru had been swallowed by terror and lost his mind.
That was probably because he'd inadvertently shared Rusvel's fear.
But in that scenario, Rusvel must have been enduring that maddening terror for an agonizingly long time. It could even mean that Subaru had a weaker willpower than the boy — though he wasn't exactly confident in claiming "I'm stronger" on that front. Still, it was hard to believe that Rusvel, who'd been perfectly capable of conversation right up until then, had been fighting off that overwhelming terror on his own.
His second death must have been caused by something more than just shared emotions and sensations.
Something beyond mere emotion and sensation sharing — and until he understood what that was, building a solid strategy against Sirius was absolutely impossible.
"————"
Subaru wordlessly squeezed Beatrice's hand tightly.
He'd brought Beatrice all this way, and yet he couldn't see a single viable solution. Without any clear path to victory, he'd essentially dragged Beatrice into this as nothing more than collateral.
What should he do? Should he close his eyes to the risk of going insane and just have Reinhard capture Sirius alive? But could he, once again, summon Reinhard and somehow explain the situation well enough to ensure he captured Sirius alive instead of killing her?
Or what if he summoned Reinhard before Sirius even appeared?
If Rachins were attacked at the square, wouldn't Reinhard be summoned in response to the mortal peril? And Reinhard surely wouldn't just cut Subaru down without hearing an explanation. If Subaru told him it was an emergency summoning, he might buy a few minutes before Sirius arrived — "Am I stupid? Yeah, I'm stupid. If Rachins triggered the action of summoning Reinhard, Sirius would definitely react. The timing would just shift earlier, and I'd have even less time to explain things to Reinhard."
Just before the fight between Reinhard and Sirius began, he'd call out for a capture alive.
Could he? Once the confrontation with Sirius started, Subaru had zero confidence in his own thought process going forward. Even if he told himself to instruct Reinhard to capture her alive, wouldn't his mouth end up screaming "Kill her"? He had prior precedent. There was nothing to contradict that possibility.
"Subaru. There's actually a piece of bad news I need to tell you."
"…Seriously? I really don't want to hear any more bad news right now."
"I know. But I have to tell you. …If you're counting on Reinhard as a combat asset, then Betty becomes useless on the same battlefield as him. I'd be nothing more than a cute girl."
"Huh?"
Beatrice's sudden remark left Subaru flabbergasted, his eyes widening comically.
Beatrice averted her gaze, looking uncomfortable as she continued.
"It's a problem with Reinhard's constitution. He's the apex of what's aberrant in this world. Just by existing, the mana in his surroundings blindly tries to obey him. It warps what's normal, and ironically, that becomes a chain on him. Not only does he himself become unable to use magic, but all the mages and spirit users in his vicinity are rendered completely useless."
"What the — what? That can't possibly be real…"
Halfway through the sentence, Subaru realized that wasn't entirely true.
It was on the day he was summoned to this world — during the incident surrounding the insignia that represented Emilia's eligibility for the royal selection. On his final loop, when Reinhard clashed with Elsa.
He remembered that Emilia, while treating
He hadn't been able to wrap his head around it then, but so that was what she'd meant.
"If Reinhard can handle things on his own, then Betty being useless is fine. But if one Reinhard isn't enough…"
"Then the choice of Betty becoming useless is off the table from the start."
So much for that hopeful fantasy.
A man whose mere presence stripped all magical function from those around him. It was so perfectly Reinhard that it was almost expected — except now, it was a massive liability.
This was bad. Bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
Right now, there was not a single ray of light in sight.
Was summoning Reinhard the right call, or was it a mistake? With Beatrice here, what should he actually have her do? What was the correct move for Subaru?
Regardless of Sirius's actions, should he prioritize the safety of the people in the square? But if he did that, Sirius would simply move to a different location and do the same thing. It would be meaningless.
Subaru's thoughts ran white-hot with frustration, the anxiety scorching parts of his brain.
His eyes bloodshot, Subaru agonized over finding an answer through sheer force of will. But the answer refused to reveal itself.
And yet time, merciless as ever, left Subaru behind and ticked on and on — "…We've arrived at the square, Subaru."
"—!"
Just as Beatrice said, Subaru's head snapped up as if jerked by a string, and he saw the square.
They had arrived. The square where the tragedy would unfold.
Before he'd found a single solution. With nothing but dwindling time spent to get here.
The white Clock Tower. The crowd filling every inch of the square.
By Subaru's estimate, roughly ten minutes remained before the tragedy began.
What should he do? What was the right course of action? If he could just — "Subaru, this might be a stretch, but Betty might have thought of something."
Beatrice's voice reached him as he stood there, lips trembling, face taut with tension.
Subaru's mind had gone completely blank, and the honeyed timbre of her voice made his eyes spin.
"Thought of something? A breakthrough?!"
"It's just a possibility. But if the Archbishop's ability you described is sharing with others… then there's a high-ranking spell called 'Nect' that produces a similar effect."
"Nect…!"
Subaru swallowed hard at Beatrice's words, her finger raised in emphasis.
Nect — it was a spell he himself had experienced firsthand at one point. It allowed the caster to share will and perception with another person, and it was indeed similar to Sirius's Authority.
Wondering why he hadn't thought of it sooner, Subaru questioned his own mental faculties.
"If it's the same as Nect, how do we counter it?"
"…In the first place, Nect isn't really a spell that requires countering. The whole purpose of Nect is to unify the will between allies — to communicate without words. Using it offensively against an opponent is a fundamentally flawed concept from the start."
Beatrice answered with an irritated expression, and Subaru pressed her impatiently.
Indeed, when Subaru himself had used Nect, it had been reluctantly — for the sole purpose of sharing his visual field with Julius. To counter Petelgeuse's Unseen Hands, he'd needed to link the eyes of someone who could see them to someone who could fight.
Nect was meant to be used for cooperation between allies.
It was absolutely not a spell designed to link enemies together and hold each other's bodies hostage.
"Originally, using Nect requires certain conditions. There needs to be enough trust between both parties to form a mana pathway. The Archbishop's Authority clearly tramples all over those limitations."
"Forcing those conditions into existence is what an Authority does, I guess. But more importantly —"
"A countermeasure? —In short, it's time for Shamak."
"Shamak is here! Man, that spell really is good for everything!"
At Beatrice's proposal, Subaru couldn't help but cry out.
Shamak was that familiar a spell to him. In times of hardship, of pain, of danger, of desperation — Shamak had always been there.
Before forming his contract with Beatrice, the powers that had stood by the powerless Subaru were
With the destruction of his own gate, Subaru had thought that connection was severed. But even through Beatrice as a conduit via their contract, Shamak could still help him.
"Right, Shamak… If it's Shamak, everything will work out somehow…"
"I can see that Subaru has an extraordinary amount of faith in Shamak. Normally, Shamak is about as basic as dark magic gets, with almost no practical application."
"No matter what you say, Betty, I won't tolerate anyone badmouthing Shamak!"
"What on earth is making you say that with such conviction?"
Beatrice sighed at Subaru's wide-eyed, huffing earnestness. Then, scanning their surroundings without letting her guard down, she held up a single finger and continued.
"Shamak is the severing of consciousness — a spell that forcibly cuts one's connection with their surroundings. When the caster is Subaru, the effect can be a bit shaky, but with Betty, there's no problem. No matter who the target is, I can perfectly sever their consciousness."
"That means…?"
"The crowd being drawn into the spell — if I cast Shamak on all of them at once, plunging their consciousness into darkness, they should be able to escape the Archbishop's Authority. The direction you were concerned about, Subaru — avoiding involving the people around us — that principle would be preserved."
Beatrice puffed out her chest with confidence, having covered everything Subaru was worried about.
At that reassuring answer, Subaru clenched his fist. A sliver of hope — faint, but visible at last.
"Alright, that works. If their ability can't reach us anymore, the tables turn. So then… what next?"
"A combat force that can take down that Archbishop without Reinhard."
"…………"
If Reinhard was present, Beatrice's Shamak strategy couldn't be deployed. So removing Reinhard from the combat equation was a must.
But that meant defeating Sirius without Reinhard.
"Just so you know, Betty will be tied up maintaining Shamak, and I'll need to cast it on whoever's fighting at the moment they land the finishing blow. I won't be able to fight."
"Right. …Crap, we're right back where we started."
Without Beatrice's support, even closing his eyes to the madness attack, Subaru's odds of beating Sirius were probably zero. Even playing his hidden trump card, he didn't know if he could hold his own. The fact that his practiced whip was useless stung more than he wanted to admit.
"Back at the square, the ones who looked like they could fight were…"
He recalled the first time — the very first loop at the square.
The people who instinctively moved to act when Sirius appeared atop the Clock Tower. There'd been a beast-man, a woman with an eyepatch, a stern-faced man, and Rachins — four of them.
Even excluding Rachins as a combatant, what about the other three? If Subaru joined them to make four, could they see at least a slim chance of winning?
"Don't be ridiculous. How much can you trust someone whose abilities are completely unknown? In the current situation, I haven't even spoken to any of them…"
"—Then isn't it my turn? Someone whose strength you already know and who can communicate with you?"
"—?!"
Shaking his head at yet more wishful thinking, Subaru heard a voice suddenly come from behind him.
That voice — one he knew far too well — made Subaru and Beatrice spin around in surprise. Standing there behind them, hands on her hips, was — "Emilia-tan? Why are you here…?"
"You were acting strange, so I followed you, and sure enough, you've gotten yourself tangled up in something awful. Trying to keep me on the outside like that — I think that's one of your bad habits, Subaru."
The way she scolded him was like reprimanding a misbehaving child, and Subaru's mouth opened and closed without producing any words.
Emilia — who shouldn't have been here, who he'd desperately wanted to keep away — and he was struck speechless. As Subaru fumbled for words, Beatrice looked up at Emilia.
"We told you to wait in the park. Why did you follow us?"
"…Honestly, I was going to wait. You clearly didn't want me coming along, Subaru. But then Priscilla said something."
"That red-haired girl?"
"She said if I didn't go after Subaru now, I'd regret it. I figured if nothing happened, I'd just quietly come back, but you two have been having such a serious conversation the whole time. I couldn't just turn around."
The image of Priscilla, the one responsible for pushing Emilia to this point, flashed through Subaru's mind.
Gritting his molars, Subaru mentally pummeled the laughing Priscilla. That girl never missed a chance to stir things up.
Her cunning and what could only be deliberate, devastating timing had masterfully orchestrated precisely the situation Subaru had wanted to avoid.
"Emilia-tan, I appreciate the sentiment. I do. But right now, this place is —"
"The Witch Cult is going to appear, right? I heard every word. …Even if you tell me to go back, I won't. This isn't someone else's problem."
"Emilia!"
It wasn't that he was trying to keep Emilia away from danger without any basis.
Subaru raised his voice, desperately trying to send the stubborn Emilia back.
She and the Witch Cult must never cross paths.
He didn't know the reason. There was no solid logic behind it. But some things didn't need logic or reason.
Emilia and the Witch Cult must never, ever meet. For Emilia, the Witch Cult was tantamount to a lethal poison she must never come into contact with.
That was true for many people who lived in this world, but it was especially true for Emilia. And so — "We'll handle this. You don't need to be involved. Please, stay out of it."
"So you're going to keep trying to protect me while you all get hurt, and I'm supposed to just look away? Absolutely not. When you fight, Subaru, I fight too. When you try to protect someone, I want to help — just like how you protect me…"
"————"
"I want to protect you too, Subaru. Because you look like you're about to cry right now."
The heart he'd sworn not to break wavered, on the verge of yielding to her plea.
To keep her from danger, Subaru had to find his courage. He had to face every trial with a heart of steel.
And yet right now, Subaru was afraid. Terrified. Afraid of fighting.
Three times.
He had already lost to Sirius three times and died.
Three deaths within the span of a single hour — he had never experienced death so frequently in such a short window, not even by
Death was always terrifying. You could never get used to it, nor should you.
Having your life taken meant having your path severed. Having your way of living denied, your existence trampled, your soul violated — that was what it meant to die.
No amount of bravado could paper over the thing gnawing at him.
No matter how fiercely he tried to hold onto his desire to protect someone, the weak voice crying "I don't want to die" kept surfacing.
Natsuki Subaru, after all this time, still could not overcome that weakness.
"…Subaru. I think you should give up."
"Beatrice…"
"Emilia is stubborn. Now that she knows, there's no changing her mind. And Betty understands how Emilia feels, too. The desire to protect you — Betty feels the same way… and denying that is something Betty can't do."
Beatrice, who served as the core of his strategy and the final authority in Subaru's decision-making — if she raised the white flag, it would be nearly impossible for Subaru to hold out alone.
Emilia looked at him with sincere determination, Beatrice with tender understanding. Both of them gazed at him unwaveringly.
Under their combined scrutiny, Subaru's resolve finally crumbled.
"…The Witch Cult will definitely target you. If something happens, promise me you'll prioritize your own safety first."
"Mm, got it. If I get captured, you'll come rescue me, right? I believe that, so I'll do my best."
"Don't jinx it… So, how much did you hear?"
At Subaru's acceptance, Emilia let out a relieved smile.
She seemed to have forgotten about the formidable enemy awaiting them, and Subaru couldn't help but feel a little deflated. Emilia touched her finger to her lip as she replied.
"I should have heard most of it. Bad people from the Witch Cult are coming, and one of them uses a spell like Nect. Beatrice will cancel it out with Shamak, and in the meantime, we need to take the bad person down."
"That's a grade-school-level summary, but yeah, that's about right. Emilia-tan, can I count on you?"
"Leave it to me. I've gotten properly strong, you know."
Emilia struck a guts pose, both fists held up in front of her chest.
The gesture was cute but a bit lacking in tension — though her grasp of the situation was solid.
The unease and guilt of relying on Emilia. The difficulty of timing Beatrice's spell right. The list of potential points of failure was endless. And yet — "With Emilia-tan and Betty here, I can't afford to fail!"
Thinking of it as fuel for his determination — now that was more like a man, wasn't it?
"Also, it's almost time."
Having accepted Beatrice's proposal and rendezvoused with Emilia, most of their remaining time had been spent. All that was left was to figure out how to respond when Sirius appeared.
Ideally, while Rusvel was still stuck inside the tower, Subaru would like to knock Sirius off it before she could do anything.
"Emilia-tan. In just a moment, an obviously suspicious person will appear at the top of the tower. When that happens, hit her with a preemptive strike — something big. Ideally knock her right off the tower. After that, Betty will handle things with Shamak, and when she gives the signal, we start the fight."
"Mm, got it. I don't know if I can pull it off, but I'll try."
Emilia's expression sharpened at Subaru's instructions, and he exchanged a nod with Beatrice.
That was when their plan had just solidified.
"—She's here!"
A lone figure leaned out from a window of the Clock Tower, revealing itself to the world.
A gaunt body draped in a coat, its face wrapped in bandages from every angle — a grotesque figure. Chains dangled from both arms, their tips scraping the floor with a grating screech as it looked down on the scene below.
Not a single person in the crowd had noticed the aberrant figure yet.
Standing upon its grand stage, Sirius trembled with elation at the defenseless mass of people before her, then spread both arms wide.
When they came together with a thunderous clap — the crowd's eyes were drawn to the grotesque figure, and that familiar speech began.
"————"
Subaru watched with bated breath as the moment arrived.
The arms, gathering momentum, slammed together in front of Sirius's chest with a violent sound — and — "U L HUMAN!!"
A massive ice pillar that materialized directly above the tower struck Sirius head-on as she stood at the edge.
The column of ice — thick enough to encase five Subarus — tore into the Clock Tower's white wall with a tremendous roar and shockwave. The wall, far from fragile, crumbled apart, and Subaru nearly dropped his jaw at the sight of the ice pillar's tip embedded deep inside the tower.
"Emilia-tan?"
"You said preemptive strike, so I tried a preemptive strike… Was it no good?"
"No, it was great. I'm just surprised you hit her before she even announced herself."
Subaru bore some responsibility for not specifying when to strike, but the bigger issue was Sirius's own appearance — clearly suspicious enough to be identified at a glance.
That single magical strike, which had shown absolutely no restraint or attempt to assess the situation, might have simply crushed the unguarded Sirius outright. And if it had — well, there was no crushed corpse to be found among the chaotic crowd, so maybe, just maybe, they'd skipped right past the sensory sharing nonsense and won.
If that were the case, Emilia had just pulled off a monumental upset.
"What do you think, Betty?"
"I'd say we should start by clearing up the misunderstanding with the people around us."
At Subaru's question about whether Sirius might have been defeated, Beatrice merely chin-lifted him with a deadpan expression.
Sure enough, Subaru saw the crowd — including Emilia, who had just destroyed the Clock Tower — slowly encircling them. Among them were the beast-man and the eyepatch woman, and the pang of sadness at being viewed with suspicion by people he'd briefly considered teaming up with hit Subaru hard.
"Right, no time for that. Um, what do we do? Should I just explain first that we didn't do it with any malicious intent?"
"—No. More than that, Subaru, you should step back."
Emilia tugged at the shoulder of Subaru, who was scratching his head and agonizing over what to say. As he instinctively stepped back, Emilia moved in front and swung her hand downward in a sharp, decisive motion.
In that instant, the air rang with a crystalline chime, and a blue ice sword materialized in Emilia's hand. Brandishing the slender blade, she pointed its tip toward the crowd closing in around them.
"Emilia-tan, surely you don't need to play the villain that hard…"
"Look closely, Subaru. Look at everyone's eyes. They're not sane."
"—Huh?"
Snapped to attention by the firmness in Emilia's voice, Subaru looked at the faces of the people surrounding them. What he saw made him stop breathing.
Every single person in the encircling crowd had turned bright red from the neck up, like tomatoes. Every visible vein bulged grotesquely across their faces, and bloodshot eyes glared at them with manic intensity.
Far from questioning their sanity, there was no doubt about it — these were faces consumed by madness.
"Betty! What about Shamak?!"
"…It's useless, I'm afraid."
"What?"
"This is fundamentally different from Nect — no, this isn't magic at all. It's not even a spell. This is a curse… a hex!"
Beatrice's voice rose with revulsion and anger, and Subaru furrowed his brow at the sound.
He didn't understand the difference in principle, but Beatrice had determined the Shamak strategy was off the table. And beyond that disadvantage, there was yet another problem.
If the entire crowd was consumed by madness — "—Stink. Stink. Stink. Stink. Stink. Stink. Stinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstinkstink"
It was a thick, viscous sound — the wailing of a grudge that cursed everything in existence.
"————"
With a crack, the outer wall of the Clock Tower gave way.
The massive ice pillar wedged into the tower developed cracks, and in a single breath it exploded into glittering shards. Amid the ice crystals catching the sunlight, footsteps rang out.
The grotesque figure.
Not entirely unscathed, half the bandages wrapped around its face were stained red. Blood dripped from the left arm hanging limply at its side, and the way it dragged the chains as it walked was clumsy and unsteady.
Emilia's preemptive strike had undoubtedly landed.
But it had also, without question, pulled a trigger that should never have been pulled.
"Smell… I can smell it. A woman's stench. Filthy, despicable — the smell of that half-demon bitch who stole my husband from me. I kill and kill, and they keep crawling out like maggots, endless and disgusting. Unbelievable. Hateful. I burned so much, and it still wasn't enough?"
"…What did you just say?"
"I can smell others too. Women's stench. Not that woman herself, but smells like hers — foul and wretched and revolting, the stench of women so rotten they've changed color and bred maggots. Ah, ahhh, ahhhh! Infuriating! Despicable! Hateful!"
Balancing on the remaining sliver of the tower's edge, the grotesque figure clawed at its bleeding head, shrieking in a piercing voice. Spitting and stamping, its bearing had transformed into something utterly unlike the composure Subaru remembered. The madness was the same — but the vector was clearly different.
"You! Testing my love for my husband, are you, spirit?! You took him from me and it's still not enough, you half-demon whore?!"
Baring its teeth and screaming with fury, Sirius leaped.
As Sirius plummeted from the tower, both arms came together overhead, and from them erupted a blaze of crimson fire. Channels of scarlet streaming from both arms, Sirius descended into the square trailing fire behind her.
Landing on all fours, face raised, arms still ablaze — the grotesque figure.
Emilia, brandishing her ice sword, and Beatrice, stepping forward to shield Subaru. Glancing alternately between the two, Sirius screamed through a voice coated in fury.
"I am an Archbishop of the Witch Cult! The one in charge of 'Wrath'!!"
The flames that surged upward washed over the crowd, and they threw their arms to the sky, howling in deranged ecstasy.
Amid a vortex of madness that bore no resemblance to the form Subaru knew, the grotesque figure declared itself.
"—