"Who gave you the guts to pirate me?!"
Another simple wave of the hand, another gust of that familiar pressure wave. It struck Subaru without effect, but the air currents scattering around him felled a vast swath of trees. Maybe even God couldn't stand to watch a guy this vile, because it was only against Regulus that Subaru's stasis never once failed.
Subaru let out an incredulous laugh. "You've got some nerve talking. I haven't even settled the score for you forcing me to kneel, you spineless, unweaned brat!"
Just like before, he took the guy down before Regulus could figure out what was happening—smoothly enough that even Subaru found it unbelievable. Speaking of which, this guy really was the weakest of the Sin Archbishops, right?
"I can't even imagine it—a giant baby like you daring to lay hands on the one I love!"
Even knowing he couldn't hurt Regulus, Subaru still threw a punch. Having died twice, he'd finally wised up: that cry of "the one I love" was deliberate—and also a genuine outburst from the heart—meant to play into Petelgeuse's way of thinking.
"Love?"
Petelgeuse clawed at his own face, nearly gouging off a layer of skin with his nails, body contorting. "Love! What a cruel love!"
Strange as it was, their wavelengths had inexplicably synced up just like that.
"What are you raving about now, you idiot? Can't you see that I'm the one who's Greed?! This guy is infringing on my copyright!" Regulus cursed at Petelgeuse.
Subaru grabbed Regulus by the face and slammed the back of his head into the dirt. "So my obsession with possessing Emilia these past few days—disgusting enough to make her want to puke, right? That's Greed, isn't it? The Greed Archbishop's power is right here in me!"
Regulus snarled, "You're plagiarizing even my Authority now? Where did a hideous idiot like you crawl out of, infringing on my rights again and again and again—"
The gathered wives watched it all, at a loss, not daring to step forward or back.
Petelgeuse cast a glance at Regulus with those less-than-human eyes, then looked down at the words surfacing on the Gospel in his hand, his already-broken brain managing, for once, a rare stretch of normal thought. Because Regulus's existence had been erased, Petelgeuse didn't recognize him. He looked at Subaru again—the one whose wavelength had just synced with his, whose vented emotions didn't seem fake, and who even had a "Gospel." He glanced at Regulus once more. The Gospel had just told him that Greed wouldn't be wounded, but in fact—because the sky was too dark—even Subaru hadn't noticed the row of teeth marks on Regulus's hand. Petelgeuse looked at Subaru, the one who could sync with his wavelength, then at Regulus, the one who'd just been cursing him.
He made a bizarre motion, bending sideways at the waist, and said to Regulus, who was lying on the ground, "You're Pride, aren't you?"
Insisting he himself was Greed, fooling even himself—wasn't that Pride?
Hearing this, Regulus's lungs nearly burst with rage. "Fine, fine, fine. I told that woman ages ago you're just an idiot. Handing the Witch Factor of Sloth to you really was like tossing it to a dog!"
He forced Subaru back a little and swung a hand at Petelgeuse—but he hadn't expected Subaru to be stronger than he'd imagined, and most of that gust got blocked, so the rest only reached the trees beside Petelgeuse.
"Ahh—how cruel! To betray Diligence and strike it down—you are Sloth as well! Is this a Trial? Are you the vessel of the Trial?!"
Petelgeuse bit down on his own finger. The Unseen Hand pinned Regulus to the ground and thrashed him against it, yet couldn't add so much as a scratch more.
Regulus's eyes flashed murder as he glared at Petelgeuse. "A hundred years ago it was the same. You're infringing on my rights yet again—you hideous mole, give you an inch and you think you're somebody!"
"Someone who betrayed the one the Witch cherished has no right to speak! A man like you is utterly repulsive to girls anywhere!" Subaru locked Regulus's throat outright.
Honestly, Subaru was a little scared of Petelgeuse. From the first time he'd died at the man's hands, he'd been able to tell—manic as he was, in certain areas the guy was unnervingly sharp. But luckily Regulus's brain worked even worse, and this hot-tempered idiot had already offended Petelgeuse beyond repair.
Subaru looked up at the row of Unseen Hands behind Petelgeuse. He didn't know why, but right now he could see these things. Just now he'd taken a moment to feel it out: Regulus had no heartbeat. True, Subaru had none either once he was in stasis—but he couldn't keep an object moving at its initial velocity, so there was still a difference between their two kinds of state. The key was the [Lion's Heart].
"Hey, diligent Sloth." Subaru recalled the agony of being killed twice by the Unseen Hand. It didn't seem all that connected, but the sensation was a lot like when he tried to speak of Return by Death and an invisible hand suddenly clamped his heart. Add to that the guy mistaking him for a Sin Archbishop—no real basis for it, but maybe things of the Witch were the same at their core?
He set his gaze on the "wives" who still hadn't retreated. Snatching up girls by force and dragging this many wives along—the Lion's Heart... this was only a guess, no real grounds. Terrified as he was of the process of dying, if he'd guessed wrong he'd just die to atone and start over!
"This guy's weakness should be that he's lodged his heart inside his 'wives'... use your hands to help crush his heart. This is punishment."
He was doing something extremely risky—cooperating with a lunatic. Nervous as it made him, it was the only method he could think of. And he had to add, in the guy's own manner of speech: "Whatever you do, don't harm them. 'Death' is the greatest Sloth of all."
"I'm sorry—not only do you have to bear with this a while... I even have to make you help with something like this." Emilia gave the large creature beneath her an apologetic pat.
The hideous "demon beast" gently shook its head and carried them at a speed no less than a land dragon's, racing toward the Royal Capital. She was the mother of the little girl who'd been the last Yimi "healed" in the first loop. Every other villager had been saved by now; only she was left. It really was a shame, but with every land dragon scared off and all of them on two legs, they needed something to ride. To repay Yimi, she put her current body to good use to help them. Four legs had felt clumsy at first, but once she got used to the rhythm she could run quite fast.
"Subaru..." Emilia pressed a worried hand over her chest.
Yimi had said this was the second time the timeline had been rewound. She didn't understand how it worked, but if Subaru hadn't hit some serious trouble, he surely wouldn't have done this. Even when Gluttony had beaten him that badly before, he hadn't backed down.
Emilia's Worry: 98 | Beatrice's Speechlessness: 23 | Yimi's Rage: MAX