Act 1, Scene 7 (Continued)
Subaru exits.
REM: "S-subaru-kun?"
"...Miss Rem, just what on earth have you done?" Saint George says, horror written clearly upon his face. "No, for that matter, Da Vinci, how could you have permitted this to happen!? If a child's body would be harmful to her soul, then surely the body of someone unrelated will be even worse!"
DA VINCI: "Wait, what? I'm a little confused. The girl with silver hair that Subaru-kun is in love with, is- gh!"
Suddenly, she clutches her head, as her eyes grow wide, and her pulse quickens. "-No, wait, that's wrong!" She hisses. "He told me himself that it was a girl named Emilia, not Rem. So why-?"
Where had she even heard the idea that Emilia and Rem were one and the same? Some sort of unsubstantiated rumor among the staff?
Saint George's eyes widen, as he grits his teeth. "Something is wrong."
REM: "Did I… no, why did I…"
She turns to glance in the mirror.
REM: "Why is it… so exact?"
The genius mind of Leonardo Da Vinci whirls at a mile a minute, seeking possible explanationsFears. To start with, this type of scenario made no sense. A puppet body is meant to blank from the start, so the soul can impose its own texture upon the wooden frame. Gran Cavallo was slightly modified from this purpose due to the inventor's preferences, but- "No, it shouldn't be anywhere close to Emilia's appearance! The most that could be achieved by my modifications is-"
GEORGIOS: "Da Vinci, stop speaking at once!"
She goes silent.
But his warning was incomplete. He had failed to tell her to stop thinking. And so, she connects the dots 'in her mind'.
DA VINCI, aside: "In other words, it's a foe that must not be spoken about. An attack transferred merely by information, like a chain letter's Curse. The internet might call it something like a 'cognitohazard'. But Chaldea should have defenses against this, so how-"
In this moment, she realizes it. Her Noble Phantasm had been repelling all attacks against Chaldea - it had even gone as far as to prevent a 'message' containing malicious information - but due to Da Vinci's own meticulous nature-
GEORGIOS: "This is- no, you're thinking aloud! You must stop!"
DA VINCI, bleeding from her eyes as she tries to halt the script: "The very information that an attack took place is enough to get people talking- and like an idiot, I went and told Subaru-kun about it back in Okeanos!"
GEORGIOS: "You leave me no choice!"
He strikes her head with the back of his blade.
In that moment, she has a worry - a crawling fear on her back!
DA VINCI, falling: "If just the information of the message's existence is this bad, then- what if someone actually saw what was intercepted-?"
And, in the command room, an email from the Atlas institute is at long last delivered, and opened by a hapless staff member!
A CORPSE: "What… is this?"
***
Backstage
"Ah, Subaru," Nobunaga calls out as I trudge past, and I almost ignore her, but- "What do you make of this?"
For some reason - no, it's just because I don't want to have to go back and see Rem- I pause, and turn to look at the Archer. Seeing my attention, she gestures me over, and I walk across the hallway to glance into… "What the hell? Did you do this?"
The room - a bedroom - is filthy. A true pigsty, completely out of place in Chaldea, filled with discarded trash and half-eaten food. Just what-!?
"O-of course not! I might be messy, but even I have standards. Look, there's even insects crawling… around…" She trails off. "Wait, is this-?"
She cuts herself off, and I turn to look, but… Oda Nobunaga is gone. "Wha-?" I glance back into the room, the buzzing of the insects within now a dull roar in my ears, and-
"My dear performer, please do not stare directly at the audience."
-A wide smile, with tears of blood greets me - and the world dissolves into a tunnel of blue light.
***
In the prop room
A shapeless white void greets me - I know this place. How could I not?
"Od Laguna's… Corridor of memories…!?" I half-whisper as confusion and panic begin to surge through me.
And then, sure enough, as I whirl around to look for that person - her voice echoes through this empty place.
"Yo, Master of Chaldea," says someone that looks and sounds like Louis Arneb. But her words are wrong. Her outfit is wrong. Her relaxed approach, the easygoing grin, are all completely wrong.
She's sitting cross-legged, still in the middle of tying her long hair up into a ponytail - and after frowning slightly, a knife materializes in her hand, and she hacks almost half of it off in a single strike, slipping the blade into a pocket of her… overalls. Louis Arneb is wearing overalls and a white button-up shirt, and somehow that's the most surprising part of all of this.
"-Alright, sorry about that. I just got this body, so I had to change a few things," She mutters - as she pulls transparent orange-red sunglasses from another pocket and slides them on. "Come on, take a seat, we've gotta talk."
…
"Who… what… what the hell is even happening!?" I shout, pointing at whoever this is.
"Come on already, sit," She sighs, resting her chin on her hand. "If you want to keep everyone in Chaldea alive, that is."
"…So it's like that." Scowling, I take a seat.
"Relax, I'm not your enemy. I'm on nobody's side," She says. "Even in terms of this all happening… your enemy set things up in a way that let me slip in here, but you're the one that brought information of this girl back to Earth, so I haven't been won over in the slightest to either side."
"...Who are you, and what do you want?" I ask.
"Nah, I don't think I feel like telling you my name just yet. As far as what I want… dunno," She shrugs. "I'm just looking to make a deal, since I like making 'em. What've you got to offer?"
…What the heck? "And what do I even get out of any hypothetical deal?"
"You saw something you shouldn't have, so you were thrown in here for a puppet shaped like Louis Arneb to devour those memories. But since I was already waiting in the wings for later, I went ahead and took her over, since she's someone suited to become me," The thing wearing Louis Arneb's skin grins. "Far as that goes, I'm already doing you a favor… but I'll do you one better. See… at the moment, everyone in Chaldea's already been killed."
-Without hesitation, I crush my heart with Invisible Providence.
-And then, I'm standing again in the Corridor of Memories. Behind me, I hear a low whistle.
No.
"So that's how that works… alright, it'll do for now. Call it an investment in a promising opportunity, right?" She says with some amusement.
No, no, no!
"It… didn't work…" I mumble numbly.
"Oh, it worked. All three minutes of our conversation were destroyed," I turn to look at her grinning face. "I've just got a similar trick of my own, so I sent my own awareness back to match you… anyway, that was a good enough 'sacrifice', so I'll help you out."
"What… are you…?" I don't understand. I don't understand at all.
"Anyway those people in Chaldea who weren't pulled straight into the singularity - I'll hang onto their lives for now. If you can resolve this… before sunrise, I guess. If you can resolve it before then, I'll bring 'em back for you," The girl says. Simply. As if the resurrection of the dead was no big deal to her.
"I… just what kind of game are you…" No, to start with, her assertion that people were dead wasn't something to be trusted, was it-?
"Well, you'll probably figure it out, or get it explained to you at some point," She says with a shrug. "Now… well, I guess I could eat your name, if you want. That'll make things easier on you, but you'll have to pay a price for that too."
"I wouldn't even take that offer if it was free!" I shout.
"Suit yourself," She grins. "Alright then, scram. I'll see you next time."
-The world melts into fog.