The End of the Known

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"What?!" You and Subaru exclaimed simultaneously. 

Everybody else looked shocked, but Roswaal had a mischievous grin on his face. "Yeeeees! I knew that Subaru-kun, and perhaps (Y/N)-kun, would perform deeds worthy of knighthood! With that in minnnd, I have already planned a knighting ceremony that all of you will participate in!"

You developed a twitch in your right eye as Roswaal ran through his explanation. Even when he lost, Roswaal still made it seem like you played into his hands. 

He really was the most aggravating person you knew, though 'person' might not even properly describe him. 

Subaru also had an annoyed expression, but it soon gave way to giddiness as Roswaal's words finally sank in. "No way! I'm going to become a knight! Heck yeah! My painful efforts will finally be rewarded! Now that I'm a knight of the kingdom, I can-"

Roswaal clicked his tongue and shook his head. "You are mistaken, Subaru-kun. You will not become a knight of Lugnica."

"Eh?!" Garfiel interjected. "If Capt'n's gonna be a knight, but you ain't makin' 'im a knight 'f th' kingdom, what're ya even gonna do?!"

Looking up from Rem, who was placed in a chair, Ram answered, "I believe that Roswaal-sama intends to make them knights of his domain."

Otto seemed the most interested in this, as he must have realized the implications of this act.

But since you weren't too knowledgeable about politics and such, you had no idea why this was so important. That is why you decided to take a step back and listen to the conversation that would be going on.

Roswaal raised his shoulders slightly in response to Ram's assumption. "Yes, and no. I plan to make (Y/N)-kun a knight of my domain, but it seems muuuch more fitting to make Subaru-kun Emilia-sama's personal knight. Does it not?"

Emilia gasped when she heard this. "M-my personal knight? Why would Subaru-kun be my personal knight when (Y/N) has helped me just as much?"

You knew that this wasn't true, and so did Roswaal.

"Emilia-sama, I do believe that you underestimate the lengths that Subaru-kun has gone for you. Do you truly not think that he has done more for you than (Y/N)-kun?" Roswaal stared at her as if he was looking down on Emilia, and Subaru clenched his fists when he saw this.

Emilia put her hand on Subaru's shoulder. "Subaru-kun has gone so far for me, and I still can't completely understand why he would do all of it. But (Y/N) has done a lot too. Like helping kill... the mabeasts..." She trailed off as she actually thought about that. "Well, he also helped at the cap...ital..." She shook her head, trying to think of something. "And he... umm... fought at the mansion to...uh...."

This was pretty sad, but it made sense. You didn't do everything for Emilia. Rather, you did it for everybody. You didn't focus your entire being into helping her, unlike Subaru.

But if you were being honest, she really could have thought of some better examples.

Oh well. People have a hard time remembering things when they are put on the spot, so you understood.

"Don't force yourself too hard, Emilia. Subaru has definitely helped you more than I have, but that doesn't mean that I've done less. So I'm not taking it too hard." Turning to Roswaal, you added, "I just find it a little revolting that I have to be a knight under you."

This only amused the clown man. "Would you rather not be knighted?"

You sneered at him. "Of course I'm going to be knighted. Just know that I'm going to complain that I'm technically your knight."

Roswaal grinned. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

Time Skip

It was settled that everyone would leave for the new mansion at the dawn of the next day. The new location was not too far from the Sanctuary, so it would only take an hour to get there by ground dragon.

Now, Subaru was jogging after you as you sat in the house that you had slept in as you recovered from what you now dubbed the 'Night of Fire,' which is an Initial D reference. It was a good song, and it was very fitting for the events that transpired in the burning mansion.

Lightly panting, Subaru raised his hand in greeting. "Hey, (Y/N)! These past few days have been crazy, eh?"

You rolled your eyes. "That's an understatement. We have literally gone through enough things to cover an entire season of an anime in the past week."

Subaru thought about this, and agreed with you. "You know, that sounds about right."

He proceeded to close the door and sit on the bed next to you. "Beako's playing with Petra right now, so we can finally catch up on what happened on our sides."

The very first thing that you thought of was the conversation that you overheard, but you didn't mention it for obvious reasons.

"Yeah, it feels like it's been forever since we last had a real talk..." You looked up at the ceiling and reminisced about the slightly more peaceful past.

Unfortunately, any time with Subaru was not going to be peaceful. "You got that right! Now, why don't you go first? I've had to go through a lot of things to get here, so you should just talk about what you remember doing."

"Hehe... about that..." You nervously smiled. "I kind of started to remember your loops as soon as my regeneration started going away."

Subaru stared at you for a second before he reacted. Jumping up, he yelled, "WHAT?! How did that happen?!"

He was staring at you with wide eyes and his mouth wide open. Your response was simply a shrug of your shoulders. "Like I already said, I have no idea how I even got my powers in the first place, so how should I know how I'm getting another one? For all I know, this could have been a result of my regeneration going away. Maybe I had a set amount of regenerating, and then once I lost it, I would start remembering loops. Maybe whoever gave me this power decided that they would rather have me remember loops instead of regenerating. Who knows?"

Now, the real reason that you could remember loops was because you had a contract with Echidna, but you weren't going to mention her until you were sure that Subaru wouldn't overreact because of his mistrust of her. Of course, that would be far into the future, but you will definitely tell him, and everybody else, one day.

For now, you have to keep on telling lies and making excuses, all of them successful in fooling Subaru.

"Wow. I can't believe that you can remember now... did you feel anything before you started remembering? Or did you see a black shadow that scared the absolute crap out of you?" Subaru had finally found someone who could remember when he went through loops, so he wanted to know as much about it as possible.

"Well, I woke up the day after I set out to the mansion, and a ton of memories suddenly started pouring into me. It was the fifth loop when I woke up, but I remembered everything that happened in the four other loops." You shivered when remembering what had happened on the third loop, which was the shortest one. "Actually, I think that the Witch of Envy came to me on the third loop. There was black miasma everywhere, and then she appeared. She kept on saying your name and that she loved you, and it really did scare the crap out of me. And then she said something about me not helping you, and then she left..."

Subaru nodded along with you, since this matched what had happened to him. "That sounds right. It was the third loop when she came and her shadows absorbed everything. I was barely able to kill myself before I gave in to her, but the whole thing was cursed from the start. Everyone died, and I only survived for a while because Garfiel was able to get to me before she could."

So it was a shared consensus. The Witch of Envy was terrifying. But...

"(Y/N), don't think of her too bad. I met her again in Echidna's Tea Party, and she wasn't evil this time. She was sad, and she actually seemed like she cared about me. Satella told me to love myself. She told me to kill her..."

If you hadn't seen that part in the anime, it would have completely shocked you to learn that Satella's goal was to die.

Actually, that made a little sense. She couldn't be killed by the Dragon, the first Master Swordsman, and the Sage, so she must be tired of having to keep on living for hundreds of years. Less than two decades in your world already had you tired of having to go through life.

"But can we actually kill her? There's a reason that she's still out there even though the three greatest heroes of her time tried to kill her."

Subaru shrugged his shoulders as he sat back down. "I don't know how, but I have to. She's in pain, (Y/N). I don't understand why she loves me just like how Emilia doesn't understand why I love her. We've done something that the other doesn't know about, and we won't ever know. So I promise that I will save her from her pain."

"Well, good luck with that. Once I find Elsa and Meili, I'm going to talk to Crusch about that Cult-killing organization. Now that we have combatants, we can start hunting those things down." You spat out those last few words vehemently, as your hatred for the Witch Cult hadn't died down one bit.

"About that, are you sure you can find those two. And even if you do, can you really keep them as allies? Personal feelings aside, those two must be assassins who have killed who knows how many people. Will the country even let you keep them?"

You smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. I'll be able to persuade anybody but that bias council of wise men. As it turns out, we have good relations with a lot of important people in Lugnica."

Subaru nodded his head and shortly went into deep thought. When he snapped out of it, he turned back to you. "Oh yeah. How in the world did you even defeat Elsa in the first place? I really want to hear about that."

You stretched your back before starting your story. "Like I said earlier, I remembered the four loops before this one, so I already knew what would happen. Elsa would come in and try to kill me and Frederica, and the mabeasts that Meili controlled would overwhelm us. So this time, I got Frederica to help me set up some traps that would kill mabeasts and make noise when they were triggered. Those probably helped a little. As for Elsa, I went ahead and collected all of the oil in the mansion and threw it into the kitchen. When she came, I used magic to buff myself and then I baited her to the kitchen, where I ignited the oil. Then I started running towards Frederica, and that's around when you came. Garfiel and Frederica dealt with the mabeasts and Meili, and after I got Petra out of the mansion, I fought Elsa again. To sum our fight up, we ran around the mansion until we got in the ballroom, where I got her in a hold and then told her that I would make sure that she and Meili would make it out alive if she joined me. Funny enough, it wasn't the fact that I was strong that truly made her switch over. The deciding factor was Meili."

Subaru sat back in wonder after he heard your story. "Wow. I thought that Elsa was just the Bowel Hunter, the crazy chick who only cared about seeing people's guts. I never imagined that she would care about someone else."

That was the same reaction you had. "Same. But there are more to people than you would think. Right?" The way you said 'right?' was supposed to get Subaru to start talking about what he did. 

And it did. "Yeah. Speaking of, I'll give you a summary of what I went through."

Subaru cleared his throat and prepared himself to relive some fresh horrors. "In the first loop, Garfiel killed me because he thought that I was acting suspicious. He was probably going to go after you too, because I heard him mention that you were probably up to no good either. Nothing good came out of that loop."

"In the second loop, I took the second Trial by accident, and then I could remember Echidna, who you said that I'd meet. And let me tell you, she may be evil, but she looks really nice in a school uniform, if you know what I mean."

'I cannot help but overhear this. (Y/N), do you need to see me in a school uniform again to answer this question?'

'Nope. I can imagine it clearly in my mind.'

'I can see what you are imagining, and I believe that I caught a flash of nhenta-'

'N-no you didn't! This conversation never happened.'

Ending the telepathic conversation, you nodded along with Subaru. "Seifuku's in anime always look cute on girls, so I can confirm."

'Pervert.'

As you ignored Echidna, Subaru went on with his debriefing. "Anyway, Emilia kept on failing her Trial, so I tried to encourage her, but she still couldn't overcome it. After a day, I went to talk with Roswaal, and get this, he KILLED Ram and Garfiel. Like, what in the world?! He killed them, then beat me up. Somehow, he knew that I had been restarting, so he was trying to force me to restart and do things like him and sacrifice people. Of course, I refused, and he ended up getting eaten by those freaky rabbits." 

He shuddered. "And so did I. I could feel those little teeth biting into my entire body. My face, my head, my neck, my ribs, my stomach, my arms, my legs, and they even went inside! I am so sorry for pushing you into those dogs that one time, because getting eaten alive is the most painful thing that I have ever physically experienced."

You dismissed that apology. "We were both messed up back then. Yeah, it was painful, but I get it."

Subaru sighed as if he was relieved. "Thanks." Getting back on track, he said, "Well, that was the end of the second loop. I went to Echidna's Tea Party to start the third loop, and that's when I learned that she also didn't die when I told her about Return By Death. It helps having you to talk to, but something in me just broke when nothing happened to her after I said 'I can return by death.' It's just so lonely having nobody but you to talk to about all of this, so I felt less alone when she was acting like she was there for me."

'Hmm... this sounds familiar. Echidna, don't you agree?'

'I comforted the two of you for two different reasons. I did what I did to Subaru in order for him to feel as if he had to depend on me, which would lead to him being tempted to form a contract with me. When he carried those feelings, it made it even more impactful when he was convinced that he should not join me because I would abuse his ability. He found it within himself to care for himself more, and this would steer him to the path that I find more interesting. When I comfort you, it is to observe your reactions and to stimulate your feelings of affection, while also testing to see if I have any. You see? The situations are completely different.'

There was a long pause as Subaru thought about Echidna and as you listened to her explanation of why she gives two different guys therapy sessions.

Subaru was the one to break the silence. "Wait- did you meet Echidna the first time we went into the graveyard?"

Going for an ambiguous answer, you told Subaru, "Remember what I told you when we walked out of it?"

He looked back in his memories, and his shoulders sank in defeat. "Even if you did, you don't remember, do you?"

You gave a half-smile, which was assumed to be a yes.

Subaru sighed. "Well, that doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that when I came out of the Tea Party, just about everyone was dead because Satella showed up and her shadows consumed everything. I told you about the rest of that loop, so I'll move on to the fourth one. This time, I did my best to help Emilia pass her Trial, but she broke down. After a day, it started snowing and the rabbits showed up again. You can probably imagine what happened next."

"At the beginning of the fifth loop, I thought that I saw Rem, but it was only the Witch of Lust making herself look like Rem. Then I went to Echidna's Tea Party, and six Witches were there! Echidna tried to make a contract with me, and I almost accepted because it sounded so good. She said that she would help me get the ending that I wanted, but she didn't mention the catch until some other Witch called her out. She would've made me abuse my power, and when I thought that things could not get crazier, Satella showed up! This time, she acted way more normal, and she and the other Witches helped me realize that I'm not a tool that is made to sacrifice itself for others. I need to use my power the least I possibly can and love myself more. If looping causes so much pain, I won't do it anymore. Echidna was trying to get me to go down a route that would have destroyed me, so I'm thankful for all of the advice that I got."

That was a lot of words so you felt your attention slipping, but you understood enough.

Subaru finally got to the part where he started figuring things out. "The first thing I did was talk to Emilia. When she fell asleep, I called out to Puck, and he came out of the crystal, even though he hadn't been coming out for Emilia. Basically, his contract was putting a barrier on her true memories that were being blocked by something, so the Trial that she was seeing wasn't the past that she was supposed to see. And then Puck entrusted Emilia to me, and he broke the contract."

Subaru gimanced before continuing. "For the rest of the night, I drew some pictures where Emilia would take her Trial. They helped her later, but when she woke up, Emilia-tan was angry that I left her, so she ran away. It caused a panic, and before I found her, I had to beat up Garfiel. When I finally found her, we had this huge argument, but-"

Subaru had a goofy grin on his face. "I used a pretty smooth line that I'm proud of coming up with. I said, 'If you don't want this, then dodge.'" He squealed as if he was a boy that was half his age. 

"And then I kissed her!" Subaru happily stretched, loosening up the muscles that had become tense over the several stressful days.

It was then that Subaru cracked up, adding, "And you know what? She thought that kissing someone made them pregnant!"

This comment made you freeze. "Wait... so Emilia thought that, when a boy kisses a girl, the girl gets pregnant? Does she even know how babies are actually made?"

Subaru shook his head as he chuckled. "Nope. When she told me that she had a baby and that I was the father, I flipped out. Puck really screwed me over by not giving Emilia any sex education."

With this, the misunderstanding was cleared up. Subaru was still on a plane that you could also exist on.

There was only one more thing for Subaru to go over. "And that leaves how I got Beako to form a contract with me. She's actually a four-hundred year old spirit, and Echidna gave her a blank book and told her to wait for 'that person' to come, even though 'they' didn't exist! I told her that I wasn't 'that person', but I would definitely make the time we spent together some of the most memorable times for her. I told her to choose me, and she did."

"Wow..." You couldn't say much more because the way that Subaru could somehow make things work out was amazing. You had Echidna helping you through the fight with Elsa, but Subaru was on his own. "You really are amazing. Doing all of that alone..."

Subaru wagged his finger in your face. "That's where you've got it wrong. Otto taught me that I don't have to do everything alone. I can ask for help. And that's the reason that we were able to accomplish all that we did. Everybody contributed, so it wasn't all thanks to me. And one more piece of advice that I got: It doesn't matter what happens in the beginning or the middle. No matter how much you mess up or how

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