Capella
'Damn it!'
Subaru knew it was too easy; everything went according to plan with Elsa, and things never worked out with Elsa. Not to mention that it was his shitty Plan B because he fucked up the whole "form a contract with Beatrice and curb stomp the Bowel Bitch" thing.
Now, his luck had run out. Subaru had no real power to speak of, and his allies were exhausted. They had no chance of survival.
On the other hand, they had a vengeful demon on their side.
"Die, Witch Cultist!" screamed Rem, her morning star reflecting the light of her horn. She threw it as hard as she could, but Capella dodged it with a twirl. The flail crashed into the wall, leaving a gaping hole.
"A demon! A demon!" Capella squealed in delight. "This lovely lady thought there were none left!"
"Shut up and die," Rem snarled. "El Huma!"
Capella avoided the first two ice spears with a smirk, but the third one grazed her arm. The wound was superficial; it was basically a paper cut and was already healing, but Capella stared at it in shock. "My… my skin," she murmured. "This lovely lady's perfect, flawless skin is ruined."
Her face twisted into something ugly, her voice steadily gaining volume with each word. "You… You bitch!"
Rem wound up her morning star and prepared to throw it, but Capella was faster. She thrust out her arms, but they were no longer the arms of a human. A tentacle wrapped around Rem's throat while another ripped the morning star out of her grip. "D-Die… Cultist." Blood rushed to Rem's face as her horn sparked, working overtime to keep her conscious.
"Fura!"
"El Huma!"
Upon seeing Rem in danger, Ram and Emilia gathered what remained of their strength and attacked the appendage holding Rem. It tore off, writhing on the ground before turning into black sludge and dissipating into mist. Emilia gazed at it in triumph, and Subaru finally shook himself out of his stupor, exclaiming, "Emilia, look out!"
Emilia whipped around and threw up a Huma to shield herself but was still caught by an appendage identical to the one that had choked Rem. She tried to yell, but she was rapidly losing oxygen.
Capella smirked as multiple tentacles shot out of her body, ensnaring Subaru, Rem, and Ram as well. "This lovely lady is quite disappointed." She clucked her tongue as she danced up to them playfully. "You defeat my best assassin, but you can't escape a simple chokehold? How pitiful."
Emilia gripped the appendage around her throat, freezing it solid. It cracked under the pressure and Emilia gracefully dropped to the ground, immediately bolting towards Capella. A blade of ice formed in Emilia's hand, and with one swift strike, Capella's head left her body.
Subaru, Rem, and Ram dropped to the floor, gasping for breath.
Subaru coughed out, "Sh-She's… She's not —"
"I don't like killing," Emilia stated, "but I wasn't about to let her hurt my friends."
"W-Wait, She's —"
"I read about her in my studies," she explained. "'Emerada Lugunica, the Scorned Lover.' Apparently, nobody liked her. I can see why. The book said that they couldn't give her a funeral, though it didn't give a reason. I guess it's because she wasn't dead."
"Emilia, she's not —"
But she wasn't listening. After all, they were safe. "I still don't know why she was here, or what she thought belonged to her." She turned around and smiled softly at Subaru. "But that's okay. She's gone now. We can —"
"Watch out!"
"Huh?" she tried to ask, but it came out as more of a squeak. Also, was she… shorter?
A giant thundered towards her. "What's going on? Help me!" she cried, but the words did not come out as intended. All she heard were the ugly screeches of a rat. Gargantuan hands gripped her, lifting her off the ground as ruby eyes filled her vision.
"How fitting," cooed an uninjured Capella. "You tried to match this lovely lady's beauty, but in the end, you revealed yourself to be merely a rat."
Emilia squirmed to no avail. She tried to call for Puck, but her necklace had fallen off during her transformation. She begged for Subaru to help her, but all that remained of him was a rat.
"No more struggling," admonished Capella. "All your friends have fallen prey to this lovely lady's Authority of Lust. An ugly duckling like you could never hope to combat it."
Ruby eyes glinted with malice. "Now, sleep."
An intense pressure gripped Emilia's windpipe, silencing her pleas for help. This was it, wasn't it?
She would never save the elves in Elior Forest.
She would never give Subaru his title of 'knight.'
She would never say goodbye to Puck.
She would die, not as a cursed half-elf, but as a rat.
Honestly, she didn't see the difference.
Capella stroked behind Emilia's ear, showering the rat with her twisted love. "You feel it, hmm? The resignation, the realization that all you're good for is this lovely lady's amusement. The whole world is my plaything, and it is your duty to accept — Ow!" She dropped Emilia and rubbed her cheek in annoyance, her expression shifting to shock as she identified what hit her. "You… There was no… How did you counteract my Authority?!"
"What can I say?" said Subaru with a shrug as if he weren't a rat five seconds ago. "A very powerful woman happens to be in love with me, and she likes me just the way I am."
Capella's eyes widened as she took a step back. "That smell… I knew it!" A guttural noise rumbled deep in her throat as she declared, "All love belongs to me! Her love belongs to me! Give me her love! Give me your Authority!"
"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all, "but I'm pretty greedy. I want that love all for myself."
She bared her fangs and lunged at him, but he pulled out a dagger and plunged it into her gut. He glared at her and leaned in until their noses were almost touching. "I want you to listen closely," he snarled. "You hurt the people I love, and I'm not as forgiving as someone like Reinhard. I am pissed off. I'm going to tear you limb from limb, and I will save them."
He thought of Meili, and what he had seen in her Book of the Dead. For that alone, Capella deserved to die.
Capella casually pulled herself off the knife, the flesh around her wound twisting and straightening itself out until only flawless skin remained. "That's big talk for a worm," she mocked. "Don't you get it? This lovely lady cannot be killed."
"Maybe not," he admitted begrudgingly, "but that just means I'll have to keep fighting you over and over again."
He leaned back, narrowly avoiding a cut at his jugular, and retaliated with a stab to the shoulder. His knife hit its mark with ease — her fury was clearly dulling her reflexes. "Eventually, you'll get bored and go back to the hell you came from."
"Never!" she cried. "I will never give up, not until I have her love!"
"Unfortunately, she's never going to give it to you… ugly bitch."
She roared in fury and instantly transformed into a tigress. It was white as snow, and every strand of fur seemed to shimmer in the moonlight. he tried to dodge the inevitable attack, but she read his movements and latched onto his leg. A mere flick of her head sent him careening towards the window, shattering the glass, and falling onto the stone below.
"Shit," he groaned. "Where're the fertilized hedges when you need them?"
He took a quick inventory of his injuries. 'Broken ribs and glass shards in my stomach,' he noted with a grimace. 'Just how stupid can I get?'
Even after all this time, he still let his temper get to him. A powerless idiot like him shouldn't have called the incarnation of lust "ugly."
Subaru tried to push himself up, but a massive weight crashed into him, crushing his spine and forming cracks in the stone under him. The roar of a gorilla reverberated through his skull, and he knew he was done.
'Hurts… so bad… Damn it all! I was doing… so good…'
The weight hopped off his back as Capella knelt before him in human form. She gripped Subaru's hair and slammed his head into the ground. Spots danced in his eyes as he struggled to stay conscious.
"You see now, don't you?" she whispered into his ear. She pulled back and looked into his eyes as she dragged a nail down his bloodied cheek. "The Witch's love does not belong to a worm."
'I couldn't avenge Meili…'
She pulled out a dagger; an ornate, silver blade with a ruby-encrusted hilt. "This lovely lady has been saving this for that special person," she murmured, her hot breath sending shivers done his spine. "Someone that pisses me off more than anything else. Someone with the audacity to think they deserve love. I thought it would be that trembly green-haired freak or that bandaged piece of shit, but once Elsa told me about your Unseen Hand, I knew it was time to use it."
On the verge of tears, he helplessly thought, 'I'm sorry, Emilia…'
Capella leaned down and nibbled on his ear as she dragged her knife across Subaru's throat. She gobbled up the blood that appeared, licking her lips as she did so.
It wasn't because she enjoyed the taste. She merely wanted to revel in her control.
The battered and bruised form of this human… The anticipation for the Witch's love…
It excited her.
She slowly, deliberately, dragged her chest across his until she sat up, straddling him with a smirk. "Any last words?"
He shivered as disgust crawled down his spine. "Fuck you."
"So be it." She raised her knife as high as she could and plunged it into Subaru's stomach. He tried to scream but choked on blood instead. Another stab. Then another. Then another.
But Subaru held on.
Her face twisted in rage. "Just die already!" she screeched. "Give me Satella's love!" She dug her knee into his gut, held her knife high once again, and aimed it at his heart. The blade pierced his skin and —
"Let's form a contract, I suppose!"
The blade ejected itself out of his chest as Capella was flung away by an unseen force.
"No!" she screeched. "You cannot have it! You cannot keep it from me! The most beautiful love! The Witch's love! It belongs to me!"
"That's enough, in fact," said the newcomer as she walked towards Subaru, unimpressed with Capella's deranged ramblings.
For the first time in four centuries, Beatrice was outside of the mansion.
Where Capella once stood was now a fearsome lioness. It let out a mighty roar and charged but collided with an invisible barrier. No matter what, she would be unable to penetrate it.
After all, nothing could interrupt the sacred dialogue between a spirit and her contractor.
Beatrice knelt beside Subaru and held her palms over his stomach, allowing the healing magic to flow through him.
"Bea — Hk… Wh-Why?" The blood in his throat preventing him from speaking clearly.
"Why indeed, I wonder?" she asked herself. She gazed down at him unflinchingly. "Betty could be in the Forbidden Library, performing the sacred task my mother gave me, I suppose. However, I am here, in front of a wounded child who is barely clinging to life, in fact."
"S-So —" He coughed and sputtered, unable to finish his sentence.
"Quiet, I suppose," she scolded. "You must conserve your energy if you want to survive, in fact."
She hesitated as she gathered her thoughts. "Mother gave me life, I suppose. I am grateful for that, and I will never stop being grateful.
"But Betty knows… that Mother's heart was cold. I never told anyone this, but Mother didn't realize she was my Mother, in fact. I had to tell her, 'You created Betty. That makes Betty your daughter, I suppose.'"
She did everything she could to forget that moment, but that just made the memory stronger. In a broken whisper, she said, "I just wanted her to love me, I suppose."
She placed her hands on his stomach, knitting the damaged tissue back together. She carefully wrapped her mana around him, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.
Why did Mother give her such wondrous powers just to hide her away from the world?
"Betty watched over the Forbidden Library like a good daughter," she continued softly. "Betty followed the path laid out in the Gospel. Betty waited for 'That Person.' Betty did everything right, I suppose. Even when Mother stopped showing me the future, I upheld our contract, I suppose."
With a trembling heart, she said the words that she had always been afraid of saying: "I hated it, in fact."
Her shoulders shook in anguish, but she continued healing him regardless. "I hated the loneliness. I hated my contract. I existed, and that was it, in fact. I didn't feel alive until I realized I was meant to die, I suppose. I accepted it, in fact. I was content. And then… you came."
She wanted to hate him. She wanted to resent him. She had tried so, so hard to loathe him.
But she couldn't.
He took her hand. He showed her care. He respected her as a person while she lived as an object.
"Why indeed, I wonder?"
This time, she wasn't asking why she came to him. She was asking why he came to her.
"Because you deserve better, Beako," he insisted, his wounds fully healed, "and I care about you. Does a guy need more of a reason?"
"Y-You —"
What was that strange feeling in her belly? Why did her cheekbones feel strained?
"Take my hand," he whispered. "Choose me. You and I will make an excellent team. I know I won't be around forever, but I'll make you so happy, you won't forget a single moment spent with me."
… Happy? Was she… allowed to be happy?
"And when I'm gone," he continued, a gleam in his eye as the fantasy played out in his mind, "I'll make sure my descendants will take care of you. You'll never be alone again, I promise. I don't want you shut inside all day; I want the world to know how amazing you are."
She was smiling. An honest, genuine smile reached her eyes. Had she ever done that before?
But still, she had to ask, "How can I know you're telling the truth, I wonder?"
He smiled gently. "You wouldn't be out here if you thought I would lie to you."
"I —" She lowered her gaze. "You are right, I suppose."
"Hey, none of that mopey stuff," he declared. He stuck a finger under her chin, lifting it up so their eyes could meet. "Rule Number One of our contract: No sadness allowed!"
She pouted. "Th-That's not how contracts work, I suppose!"
Rolling his eyes, he conceded, "Then it'll be implied. The real Rule Number One is that you need to use my real name every so often."
"That is acceptable, though it's stupid. Hmph!"
"Heh, never change, Beako," he said fondly. "Now, you're the spirit, so tell me what our contract entails."
She nodded and held out a tiny hand, counting off the stipulations of their contract.
One: Betty must sometimes use your name.
Two: You cannot contract with other spirits, be it lesser, quasi, or great.
Three: Betty must drain mana from you every day.
Four: You must assist Betty in curating the Forbidden Library.
Five: Give Betty lots of hugs and head pats.
She blinked and, realizing what she just said, backtracked rapidly. "N-No, that doesn't count! That's not one of the rules, I suppose!"
He roared with laughter. "Best. Contract. Ever." He held out his palm and said, "I accept, Beatrice."
"Why, you insolent, annoying —"
"I love you too," he said with a cheeky grin. "I'm honored to be your contractor."
She blushed and murmured, "B-Betty is a great spirit, so it's only natural, I suppose."
She gave a little jump, slapping her hand onto his as she let the mana flow through her.
It was done. Her contract with Mother was broken. Now, she would start her life as Subaru Natsuki's spirit.
But this was only the beginning. In front of them was the Sin Archbishop of Lust: an immortal foe with unimaginable power. Her contractor was inexperienced and had no magic of his own. They were outmatched.
However, she wasn't afraid. She wouldn't fall so easily. She wasn't a human, or a demon, or a half-elf.
She was a great spirit.
Hand in hand, spirit and contractor, Beatrice and "Her Person" turned to face their fate.
Subaru smirked, brimming with confidence. "Come at me, you ugly bitch."
The barrier fell, and a massive lioness bounded towards them, baring wicked-sharp teeth.
Together, they raised their arms and shouted, "El Minya!"
Forty flaming spears of crystallized mana rocketed toward Capella. She transformed into a rabbit and hopped onto one of the spears, trying to jump through them, but a point-blank Minya from Subaru shot down that plan. One of her limbs was encased in a crystal and she lost her footing, crashing into the flower beds below. Where there should have been a fallen rabbit was now a hawk, soaring into the air with no sign of injury. Angling itself, it dive-bombed towards its foes at terminal velocity, talons outstretched.
However, while Capella may be able to shape-shift, she wasn't the only one with tricks up her sleeve.
Inches away from her claws, Beatrice and Subaru vanished. Unable to stop her descent, Capella crashed yet again into the ground, breaking one of her wings. Reverting to human form with no visible injuries, she screeched, "Come out, worms! This lovely lady just wants to murder you, nothing special!" A single Minya came from her left. She dodged it and dashed in the direction it came from, not knowing that Subaru and Beatrice were already gone.
"She's resilient, I suppose," Beatrice whispered from their spot inside the hedges.
"She is, but I have an idea," Subaru responded, just as quietly. "Problem is, if she gets any closer, she'll be able to hear it and we're screwed."
'Then we could use telepathy, in fact.'
He yelped as the voice snaked through his ears. She slapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Capella whipped around and grinned ferally.
'Damn it, warn me next time!' he cried. 'How was I supposed to know we could do this?'
Beatrice growled at him before dragging her attention back to the approaching Capella, shouting, "Ul Shamak!"
Darkness covered the entire garden, removing all of Capella's senses. It would not hold her for long, but in the meantime, she wouldn't even feel the ground under her feet.
Turning her attention back to Subaru, she demanded, 'Quick, the plan, I suppose!' He rushed through his explanation, causing her to shake her head in disbelief. 'That's beyond stupid, I suppose.'
'My best ideas always are,' he said with a tinge of pride.
'It's impossible,' she insisted. 'Magic is not capable of anything like that, I suppose.'
He gave her a comforting smile. 'Have a little faith in me, all right?'
She gazed at her contractor warily before nodding. It wasn't like they had much of a choice.
"Murak," she intoned, as they pushed off the ground. Utterly weightless, one wouldn't be remiss to think they were flying. Once they were level with the mansion's roof, she dispelled Ul Shamak.
She readied an El Minya but faltered. "What… What is that thing, I wonder?!"
At her side, Subaru began to panic. "Damn it, damn it, damn it! Not this one!"
Silver talons the size of benches. Black wings so long, they put a dozen ground dragons to shame. Ruby eyes that were as large as Subaru himself.
Capella was gone, and in her place was a gigantic dragon that dwarfed the mansion itself.
With a mighty roar that shook the ground it stood on, Capella released a pitch-black jet of flame, searing the very air around it. Beatrice tried to teleport away, but Subaru was quicker. "E·M·M!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Beatrice had never heard such a nonsense incantation, but she felt the magic drain from her regardless. The stream of hellfire splashed harmlessly against her, dissipating into nothingness.
"What is this, I suppose?" she tried to ask but found herself unable to move. She tried again telepathically, this time with success.
'It's known as 'absolute defense magic,' he explained. 'It interferes with the space-time surrounding us, rendering us completely immune to all attacks. It can be used for as long as you want, but only if you have mana remaining. The only downside is that you can't move while it's active.'
'That's incredible, I suppose,' she said with wonder in her eyes.
He couldn't grin, but the emotions flowing through their bond were telling. 'Well, I said to have faith in me, didn't I?'
It was quite possibly the worst place to feel something like this, but his confidence filled Beatrice's heart with warmth.
Realizing that her flames had no effect, Capella stopped and swiped with her claws. Normally, it would shred them to pieces, but Subaru and Beatrice held firm. The talon shattered to pieces upon impact. Roaring with pain, Capella turned and set her sights on the mansion, specifically the broken window.
In a panic, he told Beatrice, 'She's going for the others! Quick!'
"El Shamak!" she shouted, deactivating E·M·M in the process.
Capella stumbled and fell to the ground, unable to control her body.
"El Minya! El Minya! El Minya!"
Casting repeatedly, Subaru and Beatrice sent hundreds of flaming spears at Capella, taking advantage of her downed state. Upon impact, the spears would shatter, scattering over her until her entire body was encased in crystal.
"Now, Beako!"
"Are you sure, I wonder?" she asked, wringing her hands together. "I don't know if I have the kind of power to cast this at the scale required, I suppose."
"You're a super-powered magical loli," he shot back. "If you can't do it, no one can."
Annoyed with the nonsensical description but nodding nonetheless, she readied herself. Taking a deep breath, she raised her arms high over her head. She gathered as much mana as possible; anyone else would have burned up from the sheer amount of energy surging through her.
But Beatrice wasn't "anyone else." She was a great spirit.
"Al Minya!"
A single flaming spear, almost as tall as the mansion itself and doubly long, hurtled towards Capella at unimaginable speeds and skewered her through the throat. A mighty crack tore through them as the sound barrier collapsed, and they were knocked out of the air by the recoil. Beatrice teleported to the ground and landed gracefully on her feet.
Subaru, on the other hand, was not so lucky. He slammed face-first into the ground, tumbling over himself a few times. Then, shooting up as if he didn't just eat dirt, he grabbed Beatrice and swung her around, grinning like a loon.
"That… was… amazing!" he shouted ecstatically. "I love you, Beako! You're so damn awesome!"
Flailing her arms, she cried out, "Put me down this instant, I suppose!"
He laughed but obliged, turning serious as he faced the ground where Capella was a moment throughout the garden was a mess of black sludge, writhing towards a central point in a desperate attempt to reform. "All right, Beako. You know what to do."
Far past the point of questioning her contractor, Beatrice complied. It was not an existing spell, but a manifestation of her will and mastery over Yin magic.
A cage of crystallized shadow formed around the black sludge, trapping Capella inside. It hardened further and shrank until there were no spaces; nothing could get in, but more importantly, nothing could get out.
Unless, of course, your name was Capella.
"She has reformed, in fact," Beatrice stated, ignoring Capella's muffled screams of anger. "She's trying to escape, I suppose."
With determination, he responded, "Then let's finish this."
Grabbing her hand, he teleported them to a forest clearing. Taking his eyes off Capella's prison for a moment, he placed his hands on his hips and sighed wistfully. "Ah, the memories. I hate dogs because of this place. But hey, I got to see a cute ninja maid in action."
"Are you finished with your pointless ramblings, I suppose?" grouched Beatrice.
"Nah, I got another stupid idea. Guess what, Beako?" Not waiting for her answer, he announced, "I can Return by D —"
He crumpled in on himself, causing her to panic. "What happened, I suppose?! Are you okay?"
"F-Focus," he grunted, clearly in pain. "D-Don't worry about me — don't even look at me. I'm fine. Just finish this."
"Betty will yell at you later, in fact!"
She still wasn't sure what to think of this plan, but she trusted her contractor. According to Subaru, if they did this right, nothing could escape their trap.
Not even an immortal Sin Archbishop of the Witch's Cult.
Beatrice focused on the cage of shadows and gathered her power. She visualized thousands of hands covering the cage and squeezed.
"Yes, that's it!" cheered Subaru as the cage began shrinking in on itself. "Keep going! Whenever you think it's as small as it can get, make it smaller."
"Like this, I wonder?" she asked when it was the size of a mouse.
"Smaller," he called back.
"Now, I suppose?" she questioned when it was the size of an ant.
"N-No, much smaller!" he yelled, his voice strained from exertion. "So small, it doesn't — shit, that was close — have width, length, or height! Back off! Bad dog!"
'Bad dog?' she thought. Out loud, she asked, "What are you —"
"Just keep focusing!" he interrupted. "It needs to be a singularity!"
She was faltering now; her palms were sweating, and she could swear she smelled smoke coming off her body.
"I-I can't go anymore, in fact!"
"Yes, you can!" he yelled back. "I believe in you, Beako! You can do this! Just keep going!"
With renewed vigor, she bared her teeth and pushed even more magic into the cage. Just when she thought she would burn up from the sheer amount of energy, the cage collapsed. The space around it warped and fell in on itself, and she felt the distinct sensation of being pulled. The grass, the trees, the air, the light… there was nothing. Everything had disappeared.
Her connection to Subaru told her that he was calling out to her, but there was no sound. She felt herself drift toward the darkness —
Her senses returned to her and she gasped for breath. Subaru had teleported them to the roof of the mansion.
"Phew, that was a close one," he breathed. "I can't believe that worked."
"What w-was that, I w-wonder?" she managed to ask despite her protesting lungs.
He gently grasped her shoulders and turned her toward the forest. All she saw was darkness, and she told him as such.
"Look around the darkness," he instructed.
"But there's nothing, I suppose," she pointed out. "Just… Huh. That's —"
He let out a low whistle. "It's amazing."
"Beautiful, in fact," she said. Her eyes shimmered with wonder. "I've never seen anything like it."
The darkness was merely the nucleus. Surrounding it was a spiral of light and gas, rapidly being sucked into the darkness. A pillar of energy shot up towards the clouds, lighting the sky above. It was captivating in a way that words could not describe. She didn't know such a combination of light and darkness, of escaping and absorbing, was possible. One thing was for sure: once you got close enough, nothing could escape. Not even light.
If light itself couldn't escape, neither could a Sin Archbishop.
"What is this, Subaru?" she asked. He didn't respond for some time and she glanced at him worriedly. "Is something wrong, I suppose?"
"Nothing's wrong," he said with a grin. "It's just really nice to hear you say my name."
"Why you little —"
"But honestly, I never thought I'd see this," he interrupted, patting her on the head fondly. "Enjoy it while you can. It formed from a relatively small mass, so it should disappear in a few more seconds. It's not even large enough for its pull to reach the village, but that doesn't make it any less incredible. Hell, you're incredible, Beako. The power to create a phenomenon seen only in the center of galaxies…" He sighed wistfully, a faraway look in his eyes. "This is absolutely nuts. You and I are the only two people to have ever seen a black hole."
"A black hole," she whispered as if tasting the words. "I've never heard of that, in fact."
"Few people in this world have," he admitted. "Lugunica doesn't have the technology or mathematics to discover this kind of thing."
She gave him a sideways glance. "Then how do you know about it, I wonder?"
He grinned and stuck his thumb to his chest. "Well, usually, a black hole is just a star that got too big, and I'm a massive space nerd."
She rolled her eyes. "You are an idiot, in fact."
"And you're a tsundere loli."
"For the last time, those words don't mean anything, I suppose!"
Subaru laughed and fell back, arms spread wide. "We did it, Beako," he said. "We made it past this, for real this time. Finally, we can relax. No Elsa, and definitely no Sin Archbishops. They don't exactly work together, so they might not even know about Capella's demise. We can lay low for a bit."
He shot up suddenly, panic tinging his voice. "Unless there's something else? Please, I just want to sleep!"
"It's just us, I suppose. You can feel it, too, in fact. Every living being in the mansion is visible through our connection to the Forbidden Library, so we know there are no other intruders, I suppose."
He nodded. "Yeah, I guess I just wanted some reassurance. Still, this connection to the mansion is incredible. It's like I'm constantly looking at a holomap and can pinpoint everyone's exact location. I could already do something to locate those I have an emotional connection to, but this? I feel like I'm one with the mansion. It's nice to know that I can keep an eye out for my friends." A moment after he finished, he grimaced. "Speaking of my friends, Capella turned them into rats."
She jumped a bit. "What, I wonder?!" How was he not freaking out right now?
"Don't worry about it," he dismissed. "When Capella died, some of her power got transferred to me. I think I can turn the others back to normal. Even if that doesn't work out, I have a backup plan."
She looked at him wearily, as if afraid he'd go insane at any moment. "Wait, you absorbed Witch Factors, I suppose? Are you sure you're compatible, in fact?"
He chuckled, a hint of self-loathing tinting his voice. "A little fact about me: I'm extremely compatible with Witch Factors." Instead of elaborating, he changed the subject. "By the way, how much mana do you have left?"
"About half, I suppose." She frowned at him. "Why do you look so relieved, I wonder?"
He waved her off. "Eh, it's nothing. You just have way more mana left over than I thought you would."
"That's two hundred years' worth of mana, I suppose!"
"Yeah, well, you can get it back," he said flippantly. "You still have the Forbidden Library to use as a conduit, don't you?"
She tilted her head. "Why wouldn't I, I wonder?" Her contractor said the strangest things sometimes.
… Her contractor. Betty's Subaru. She loved the thought of that.
"Don't worry about it." He stood up and offered her his hand. "Let's go, Beako. Our friends need us. Then, when everything is said and done…
"… I have a story to tell you."