Subaru had to suppress a surprised sigh at how dead her emotions were. Emilia no longer transmitted… anything to her. It wasn't just that she had loved her minutes before: the mere thought of seeing someone die, regardless of their morals or her opinion of them, should have disturbed her in some way. Death was the absolute mystery, the poison of mankind, the panic that influences all of its decisions. Seeing her die before her own eyes, on top of it wrapped in a series of surreal and unsettling circumstances, should have broken her somehow. It should have disoriented her sense of reality strongly enough to wonder if it was all a mere dream. An existence of flesh and blood like her, so beautiful yet so fragile, wasn't made to regard non-existence as something trivial. Such a thing would be an ability beyond the laws of evolution and common sense.
However, Subaru felt absolutely nothing about it. In fact, she felt she could easily forget her if she stopped thinking about her. And it wasn't because her memory failed her: she perfectly remembered her flattering smiles, her unfounded but lovable kindness, her stupid altruism and her needless impulse to sacrifice herself for others. Her mind also kept alive the images of her sickly flushed face as Subaru complimented her looks, her lack of ability to pretend to be cold and mean and her willingness to help lost children.
However, Subaru noted those feelings were no longer alone in her heart. There was a new and unexpected parasite distorting the established order in it, manipulating its pulses so that the electrical charges in her brain reached new emotions. She felt a beast of emptiness inside her in which all her love towards the half-elf was rushing. Something had broken inside her because of that book, and her mind had had to use external material to completely rebuild itself. She could now also remember herself despising her to a sick degree, rejecting her entire physical and spiritual existence as if they were poison to the world.
The two halves of her being had blended together, but it had taken some sacrifices. There were absolutely incompatible parts that had to be scrapped. There were forces so opposed to each other that they had canceled each other out.
As a result, Subaru had little trouble clearing Emilia from her thoughts and bringing her teacup closer to her mouth.
"ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!" Minerva yelled, seeing the calm on Subaru's face. "IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN, I SWEAR I'LL...!"
“My, could you please calm down? You're going to go bald if you keep getting so worked up. Didn't you know that what determines the youth of your body is that of your heart?"
"DON'T PRETEND YOU CARE!"
Subaru stifled a cheeky laugh at her insurmountable bad mood. Minerva, whom she now remembered as vividly as her parents, was a ticking time bomb ready to self-destruct at any moment. Satella didn't need to bother killing her: she herself would have found some absurd way to ruin her own life. People like her live in a strange limbo in which they are either beloved heroes or despicable villains, and within this she was part of an even smaller subcategory whose members either achieved a lot of feats in their lives or died at the first challenge. And since she now had to spend her life having tea with a bunch of witches, it was obvious what options she had ended up in.
Minerva was a constant contradiction, a perfect and brilliant absurdity that could never be fully anticipated. Echidna found her fascinating for this very reason, and that emotion had managed to survive even after she was reborn.
“That's very rude of you, you know? Why does it irritate you so much to see me happy?
"Because we're talking about you, of course!" Minerva exclaimed, releasing a snort of contempt. “You're an idiot who only thinks about making dangerous and unnecessary pranks and other nonsense. What crazy thing are you planning to do this time?”
"None. I don't need to lift a finger, actually. I already have everything I need.”
Such a statement only served to tense the blonde even more, although in a more silent and expectant way than before: an air of suspicion pierced her eyes and marked her entire face with the vivid image of bewilderment.
“…You…what the hell do you have in mind? What have you done?!"
“As I just told you, I didn't need to do anything. I just have to wait."
“Allow me to change the question” she replied, this time with a very unusual seriousness in her: “What do you hope to achieve?”
That was the small straw that broke the camel's back.
A seismic movement moved under Subaru's face and created a strange reaction in her. First, her eyes quivered like beetles fluttering under moonlight until they seemed to be trying to steal Minerva's soul. After that, the witch of wrath noticed how her smile widened from end to end as a result of an inexplicable chemical reaction that unleashed an indefinable emotion in her heart. Her lips had become an impeccable semicircular arch, perfected by the varnish of hope. Finally, her fingers began to tremble briefly, as if they had been hit by a brief electrical shock.
"Isn't it obvious? Think about it: what could make me really happy?"
Minerva and Subaru stared at each other for a tense minute as they tried to figure out each other's mind. However, the former quickly realized it was in vain: Subaru's face had gone completely rigid due to the wild but steady and constant emotions flowing through her. Her entire body had become a perfect channel through which her soul transited tirelessly, leaving traces of emotions everywhere.
Suddenly, Subaru felt a strange pulsation in the air: it seemed suddenly drier, the green of the meadow more dead, and even the tea more insipid than it already was. It was evident that her predictions had been correct.
“I'm going to get out of here” she finally revealed to her. “Today. Within a few minutes, in fact. And that is why I'm afraid I must ask you to leave.”
Minerva didn't even have time to speak: a strange jolt of energy suddenly shattered the balance of her body. Subaru had managed to take her by surprise, and the result was that she couldn't even try to defend herself. Less than a second later, she had been banished from the metaphysical wasteland created by Echidna, doomed once again to be just a formless soul.
And just a minute later, Subaru managed to see the image she expected. With a quick movement he prepared a second cup and said:
“I was beginning to think you'd never show up. How are you?"
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