Re:zero to Echidna

The library was a crypt of forgotten words.

Subaru stood in the doorway, his shadow stretching long over warped oak floors that creaked like the bones of something ancient. Dust motes swam in shafts of pallid light filtering through stained-glass windows—depictions of horned demons and six-armed saints that watched with cracked, judgmental eyes. The air tasted of vellum and decay, of ink turned to poison over centuries.

*"Cozy,"* Echidna murmured, her form flickering into existence beside him. She reached for a nearby shelf, her fingers passing through a grimoire bound in what looked like human skin. *"Beatrice always did have…* eclectic *tastes."*

Subaru didn't answer. He'd stopped questioning how he'd gotten here. One moment he'd been pacing his room, the next—this. The mansion had a way of bending around his numbness, corridors leading where they pleased. A prison with shifting walls.

"I suppose you've come to bother Betty, then."

The voice came from above. Subaru tilted his head back. Beatrice sat cross-legged on a floating ladder, her frilly dress defying gravity, a massive tome open in her lap. Her pink eyes glinted like shards of candy glass. "Though Betty doubts someone so *smelly* has the intellect to appreciate her collection."

The Witch's scent. Subaru almost smiled. Even here, it clung.

*"Crush her,"* Echidna whispered, her breath frosting his ear. *"Tear those pretty books to confetti. Let's see how far Beatrice fars."*

He ignored her, stepping deeper into the library. His boots left faint prints in dust older than kingdoms. "Got anything on time loops? Or how to kill a spirit permanently?"

Beatrice's ladder screeched as it slid along the shelves, following him. "Hmph. As if Betty would waste her archives on hypotheticals. Or *filthy half-wits*."

"Hypotheticals." Subaru paused beside a table cluttered with astrolabes and rodent skeletons. "Right."

A book slammed shut behind him. Beatrice now stood atop the table, her tiny frame dwarfed by the leather-bound monstrosity in her arms. "You reek of *her*, you know. The Witch. It's… *disgusting*." Her nose wrinkled, but her gaze was sharp, probing. "Why are you here, I wonder?"

*"She's curious,"* Echidna cooed, materializing in the rafters above. *"Poor thing's been alone so long, she's forgotten how to ask nicely."*

Subaru reached for the book in Beatrice's hands. She jerked back, but not before his fingers brushed the cover. A jolt ran through him—memories not his own. *A girl with pink hair, weeping over a corpse. A contract etched in blood. A door that wouldn't open.*

He yanked his hand away. "You're trapped too."

Beatrice went very still. The air thickened, mana crackling like static. "How *dare* you—"

"You guard this place, but it's a cage. All these books… they're just walls." Subaru turned, scanning the labyrinth of shelves. "Who's your jailer, I wonder? Roswaal? Or someone *older*?"

The ladder toppled with a crash. Beatrice appeared in front of him, levitating at eye level, her book now a jagged shard of crystalline ice pressed to his throat. "Betty could end you where you stand, human."

*"Do it,"* Echidna urged, suddenly beside Beatrice, her fingers hovering over the spirit's throat. *"Let's see if her screams match her voice."*

Subaru stared past the ice at Beatrice's trembling hands. She could kill him. Wouldn't be the first time someone in this mansion tried. But the blade didn't plunge.

"You're not curious?" he asked softly. "About the Witch's stench? About why *I* stink of her?"

Beatrice's eyes narrowed. The ice dagger melted, dripping between them. "Betty has no interest in *failed experiments*."

*"Liar,"* Echidna and Subaru said in unison.

***

He returned the next day. And the next.

Beatrice pretended not to notice him at first, her nose buried in grimoires, her ladder gliding pointedly away whenever he approached. But Subaru had mastered the art of existing as furniture. He sat in corners, tracing the scars on his bloodied wrists, reading titles in languages that writhed when stared at too long: *The Seventh Calamity's True Name. On the Consumption of Stars. How to Kill Death in Seven Easy Steps.*

On the third day, a book thumped onto the table beside him.

"Here," Beatrice snapped, already turning away. "If you're determined to sully Betty's sanctuary, at least *pretend* to be scholarly."

The cover read *Treatises on Temporal Anomalies*. Subaru cracked it open. Diagrams of hourglass vortices stared back, equations that made his eyes bleed. "Thanks."

"Hmph. Betty merely wishes to hasten your inevitable mental collapse."

*"How considerate,"* Echidna drawled, lounging atop a chandelier. *"Maybe we'll name our first child after her."*

Subaru flipped a page. "Why do you stay?"

Beatrice froze halfway up her ladder. "What?"

"You hate Roswaal. Hate this mansion. So why play librarian?"

The ladder shuddered. Books rained down around them, pages fluttering like wounded birds. "You understand *nothing*, human! Betty's duty is—!"

"—a chain you polished until it felt like a crown." Subaru caught a falling tome, its title glowing faintly: *Forbidden Arts of the Omega Covenant*. "Must get heavy."

Silence. Then, so quiet he almost missed it: "...You're one to talk."

When he looked up, Beatrice was gone.

***

The confrontation came on the seventh day.

Subaru awoke to find the library… *altered*. The stained-glass saints now wept blood. The air hummed with a subsonic growl. Beatrice floated at the room's center, surrounded by orbiting grimoires, her hair crackling with mana.

"You will answer Betty's questions," she intoned, voice layered with a thousand whispers. "Or perish."

*"Finally!"* Echidna clapped her hands, materializing in a swirl of black lace. *"Torture is such a *lovely* icebreaker."*

Subaru set down the book he'd been pretending to read. "Shoot."

"What *are* you?" Beatrice's eyes glowed white. "A spirit? A Witch Cultist? A *ghost*?"

"Worse." He stood, hands in pockets. "A survivor."

The orbiting books flared. One shot toward him—*On the Anatomy of Torture*—its pages fanning into razor-edged wings. Subaru didn't flinch. The book disintegrated inches from his face, reduced to ash by a sudden surge of ice.

Puck hovered in the doorway, his paw outstretched. "Easy, Beako. You'll upset Lia."

"Stay out of this, please!" Beatrice snarled.

Emilia rushed in, her hair disheveled, still in her nightgown. "Beatrice! What's going—?" She froze, as mana pressure hit her straight on. "Subaru…?"

He watched the pieces click in her eyes—the ash, the mana, his apathy. "Morning."

*"Kill the half-elf,"* Echidna urged, now perched on Subaru's shoulder. *"Use the ice spirit's power against her. They'll make such *delicious* faces."*

Beatrice descended, her fury a living thing. "You *invited* this stench into Betty's sanctuary! You—"

"—knew you'd sense it." Subaru met her gaze. "Knew you'd *recognize* it. How long since you've spoken to another Witch, Beatrice? Four centuries? Five?"

The room stilled. Emilia choked. "W-Witch…?"

*"Oh, she's *good*,"* Echidna purred. *"Satella's little sister, isn't she? Or was it the other way around?"*

Beatrice's mana vanished. She dropped to the floor, her dress pooling around her like spilt cream. "You… you truly are *her*—"

"No." Subaru knelt, ignoring Puck's growl. "But I've met someone who'd love to say hello."

He placed a hand on Beatrice's cheek.

***

*The tomb. The chalice. The Witch's smile.*

Beatrice recoiled, screaming. The vision—Echidna's realm, the tea party, the *truth*—flooded her mind. She scrambled back, tears streaming. "N-no! Betty refuses! That… that *thing* is not—"

"—the answer you wanted?" Subaru finished. He stood, Echidna's laughter echoing in his skull. "Yeah. Join the club."

Emilia stepped forward, trembling. "Subaru, what did you *do*?"

He looked at her—really looked—for the first time in loops. Saw the fear. The hope. The *need* to believe he was still her savior and friend.

"I got bored," he said, and walked out.

***

Ram found him at dusk.

He was back in his room, watching the sunset bleed into the hedge maze. She entered without knocking, her cleaver glinting.

"What did you do to Beatrice-sama?"

Subaru didn't turn. "Opened her eyes."

The blade pressed against his jugular. "Fix it. *Now*."

He leaned into the edge, feeling skin part. "Or what? You'll kill me? *Again*?"

Ram's breath hitched. The cleaver clattered to the floor. "You're… you're *monsters*, all of you. The Witch. *You*."

*"She's *darling* when she's broken,"* Echidna sighed, sprawled across Subaru's bed. *"Shall we break her more?"*

Subaru stood, Ram backing away as if he were contagion. "Tell me, Ram—if you could undo Rem's death, but had to become *me* to do it… would you?"

She fled, her connection with her sister warning her that Rem was in grave danger.

The sunset deepened. Somewhere, Beatrice sobbed. Somewhere, Emilia pleaded with Puck. Somewhere, Rem's corpse rotted.

Subaru closed his eyes.

*Loop 103,435: The library burns. Loop 103,436: Beatrice's eyes hollow. Loop 103,437: Perfection.*

Echidna's fingers brushed his neck, stitching the cut closed. *"My perfect, greedy boy."*

He didn't pull away.