Follow the fallen stars

Greed Chapter 7: Cornered

'What the hell happened? Why did I suddenly loop—no, the better question is what caused my counterpart to loop?'

This was something that started to bother Subaru since every time he seemed to have the situation in his favor, his other self would just kill himself causing them to start from square one.

'I wonder what prompted him to off himself this time.'

"Is something wrong, Subaru?"

"...hm?" Subaru turned towards Emilia, noticing her question. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was in deep thought."

"Is it something we should be concerned with?" Otto chimed in, knowing that something was bothering his best friend.

"I'll be fine, really. Let's just keep our guards up."

As he said this, he grabbed onto Beatrice's hand before taking the lead.

The little loli spirit was caught off guard by this...however she felt safe holding Subaru's hand.

"Is everything okay?" She asked, wanting to make sure her contractor wasn't trying to hold his worries to himself. Subaru took note of this, prompting a response:

"I feel that something's coming. I just don't want any of you to get hurt."

Subaru was honest here since in the last loop, what worried him the most was his Beatrice dealing with Roswaal all by herself.

If he knew anything it was that although his spirit is powerful, against Roswaal...it would only be a matter of time before the Margrave beat her the moment she ran out of mana.

'I don't want you leaving my side, Beako. I need you to save her, save the Beatrice of this world.'

As he thought this, he thought back to the last loop on just how deep the hole in this world's Beatrice's heart was.

It was hard enough reaching Beatrice the first time around and he knew that this time he won't be able to since the other Subaru would find a way to make sure it did not happen.

'Whatever this bastard did, it just made things worse for Beako 2. The only one who can save her now is my Beako.'

The second his thought ended here; he suddenly felt an extremely head pounding headache that caused him to almost collapse to the ground.

"Subaru?!" Both Emilia and Beatrice shouted as they saw him wobble in place.

"I-It's fine! Just...give me a second."

As he shouted this, he began to understand a little more on the situation with Beatrice.

How his counterpart just entered the burning mansion and grabbed her without trying to reach her heart first.

No, he chose to forcefully take her out of the Forbidden Library with no say in the matter on her end.

("NO!")

He could hear the despair and hatred in Beatrice's voice shout as she checked on the surviving books from the library.

Both Natsuki Subaru from the memory and the Natsuki Subaru receiving the memory were caught off guard when they saw that the books that had survived were just...blank from cover to cover.

Subaru understood a bit of Beatrice's rage, knowing that the cause was for sure that she was taken from the library, explaining the anger and sadness in her scream.

However, what he didn't realize was that Echidna had some plan in case something happened to Beatrice.

'Of course, give her a blank book to leave her depressed but have a way to protect the knowledge should something happen to her. What a greeeeat mother.'