The portly middle-aged man's eyes lit up the moment he spotted Gojo.
"You must be Mr. Gojo. I'm Leon Walker. We were at the same assembly, though I doubt I left much of an impression."
Gojo regarded the man's almost aggressive warmth, then lowered his sunglasses and shot Felt a questioning look.
"Baron Walker has been an exceptionally generous supporter," Felt said smoothly, "and a great admirer of your abilities."
The message landed instantly. This baron had opened his wallet wide.
"My apologies for not making time to meet you sooner, Baron. A real shame on my part."
"Not at all, not at all!" Walker waved the comment away, his round face creased with an easy smile. "Anytime you'd like to visit, my doors are open."
A few more pleasantries, and the baron took his leave.
The second he was out of earshot, Felt seized Gojo's arm.
"Do you know how much I pulled in?"
"Enlighten me."
"Two meetings this morning. Five hundred Holy Gold Coins. Five. Hundred." She was vibrating. "There are two more this afternoon. I could hit a thousand by tonight!"
"Five hundred?" Gojo didn't share her excitement. "That's it? These nobles are cheap."
"You think everyone's sitting on a fortune like Roswaal? The Mathers family has been accumulating wealth for generations. Most minor nobles can't even match a rich merchant. Squeezing this many coins out of them is already impressive."
Felt's tone shifted, more measured than he expected.
"Besides, the coins aren't the point. What matters is what these people represent. Once a few nobles back me publicly, others follow. It's momentum. Pretty soon, they'll be lining up to throw money at us."
Her eyes gleamed with a hunger that had nothing to do with politics. Every noble who walked through that door wasn't a person to her. They were a walking purse.
"Fair enough," Gojo conceded. "It's a solid start."
"Oh, and the knights. I had Reinhard ask them. They've agreed to another group challenge tomorrow. Same deal as before, one Holy Gold Coin per entry fee, except this time they're fighting you directly."
"You really don't miss a single opportunity, do you."
He flicked her on the forehead.
"It's called earning a living. What's wrong with that?" She rubbed the spot but didn't flinch. "The faster we stack coins, the faster we can leave. I'm setting the target at ten thousand per person..."
Gojo's eyes rolled skyward. He opened his mouth to tell her she'd lost her mind, to ask if she had any concept of what ten thousand Holy Gold Coins actually meant, when Reinhard approached.
"Lady Felt, you handled yourself wonderfully today. I'm certain more nobles will come forward to pledge their support."
"Thanks."
"However, there is something I don't quite understand." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Why insist that every contribution be settled in Holy Gold Coins? In many cases, trade connections or material resources would be far more valuable."
"Your vision's too narrow, Reinhard."
She didn't elaborate.
"I'm not in the mood to explain right now. I need rest before the afternoon visits."
And she vanished down the hallway before he could press further.
Reinhard turned his puzzled gaze on Gojo, who was already backing toward the door.
"Don't look at me."
He slipped away without another word.
Evening arrived. Felt wrapped up her final two meetings, and for the first time since entering the royal selection, her support base extended beyond Roswaal's shadow. Three nobles and one wealthy merchant now stood behind her, openly and on record.
"One thousand Holy Gold Coins."
"I told you we'd hit it!"
Dinner had barely ended when Felt burst into Gojo's room clutching several bulging coin purses. She shook them triumphantly in his face, then upended every last one onto his bed.
Gold cascaded across the sheets. She threw herself onto the pile and rolled once, grinning like a cat in sunlight, before sitting up to count.
"If you want to count money, why can't you do it in your own room?"
Gojo stared at the girl sprawled across his bed, exasperated.
"Don't you want to know the total?" She didn't look up, fingers flying through the coins. "Watching the number climb doesn't get your blood pumping?"
"Just tell me when you're done. The process doesn't interest me."
He yawned.
"Absolutely not. Fair and transparent, that's the rule. I won't have you accusing me of skimming later." She waved him off. "Now shut up and let me count."
Her hands moved fast. It didn't take long.
"Not counting your three hundred and change, the total comes to one thousand two hundred and thirty-four!"
She shouted the number like a battle cry.
"We're well on our way to thirty thousand..."
She was still mid-sentence, still buzzing with excitement, when something shifted.
A crawling wrongness bloomed in the pit of Gojo's stomach. Felt stood right in front of him, her expression frozen mid-word, vivid and sharp, but the world around her had stopped. Not slowed. Stopped.
He recognized the sensation instantly.
And then the room was gone.
He was standing in the Great Hall. Gilded columns soared overhead. The Royal Guard Knights flanked his left, nobles and officials his right, the crowd already filtering toward the exits.
The assembly. He was back at the assembly.
Understanding hit like a freight train, and his gaze snapped toward one person.
Subaru used Return by Death.
The assembly was the checkpoint. Everything since then, the meetings, the coins, the planning, all of it, erased.
He found Subaru in the thinning crowd.
What he saw stopped him cold.
The boy stood rooted to the floor, eyes vacant, staring at nothing. The muscles around his eyes twitched and spasmed uncontrollably. His pupils had contracted to pinpoints, trembling, as though whatever they'd last witnessed had burned itself so deeply into his mind that the afterimage refused to fade.
He looked broken.
Gojo crossed the distance without hesitation.
"You alright?"
At the sound of his voice, Subaru's entire body flinched violently, a full-body recoil like a cornered animal, and he pitched backward.
"Hey, buddy, you don't look so good." Al caught him by reflex as Subaru stumbled into him, one hand steadying the boy's shoulder.
Subaru screamed. He wrenched free and launched himself away as if Al's touch had been a branding iron.
Gojo didn't waste time with questions. Two steps forward, one precise strike, and Subaru crumpled.
"What was that about?" Reinhard stared at the unconscious boy in Gojo's arms, bewildered.
"He's not feeling well. Felt, let's go. We're heading back."
One look at Subaru told him everything he needed to know. This was nothing like the previous two times. Before, Subaru had died in his sleep, painlessly, without even knowing it happened. Whatever killed him this time, he'd been awake for every second of it.
No point trying to interrogate someone in this state. Knock him out, get him somewhere safe, deal with the rest later.
Felt had only just returned to the hall herself and had no idea what was happening. Confusion was written across her face. But she trusted Gojo, so she swallowed her questions, nodded, and climbed into the Dragon Carriage without a word.
Inside the carriage, she watched Gojo prop his chin against his fist and stare out the window.
"What happened to him?"
Betty glanced at Felt but said nothing.
As a Great Spirit, she could sense it with piercing clarity. The Witch's miasma clinging to Subaru had intensified in a single instant, thickening to something many times denser than before. The sudden change was impossible to ignore.
But what occupied her mind even more was what Gojo had told her before. About time reversing. If she remembered correctly, that phenomenon was tied to Subaru, and the surge of Witch scent on him right now could only confirm one thing.
Everything she was experiencing, she had already lived through once.
"Probably fell asleep standing up and had a nightmare," Gojo said flatly.
"You're the one who called him an idiot. Seems about right for him."
Felt's eyes rolled so hard they nearly left her skull.
"If you don't want to tell me, just say so. Don't insult my intelligence with that."
"Then why'd you ask?"
"Hmph."
She crossed her arms and refused to look at him for the rest of the ride.
The Dragon Carriage pulled through the gates of the Astrea estate. Gojo carried Subaru to his own room, Betty following close behind. She shut the door and turned the lock.
"How many times has this happened now?"
She leaned against the door, watching him lay Subaru on the bed.
"So you figured it out."
"I'm not senile."
"Since we left Roswaal's territory, this makes the second time."
"Oh? Then something happened that I don't know about."
"It'd be stranger if you did know."
Betty crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, studying Subaru's slack face.
"Physically, he's fine. Not a scratch. The damage is all mental." She tilted her head. "And unlike what you demonstrated for me before, this body hasn't been regenerated."
"Betty, that analysis almost makes you sound as dense as he is."
"You're welcome to stop talking anytime."
"So what now? We just wait for him to wake up?"
She poked Subaru's cheek.
"I don't have that kind of patience."
Gojo grabbed Subaru by the collar, hauled his upper half over the edge of the bed, snatched the teacup off the nightstand, and splashed it directly into his face.
The water hit. Subaru's eyes cracked open, bleary and unfocused. Still hollow, still distant, but marginally better than the catatonic shell he'd been at the assembly.
Gojo, ever considerate, dragged the dripping boy off the bed and onto the floor. No sense ruining perfectly good sheets.
"Moshi moshi. Can you hear me?"
He crouched beside Subaru and spoke directly into his ear.
No response. No flicker of recognition.
"Hey. Give me something here." He snapped his fingers in front of Subaru's face. "This whole routine is getting old."
Subaru sat on the floor, silent, expressionless, eyes like dead glass.
Gojo looked at Betty.
"Do the thing. Give him a little jolt."
"What thing?"
"Drain a bit of his mana. I remember it being an intense sensation."
"Sometimes I wonder if you two are actually friends."
Betty muttered under her breath but knelt in front of Subaru and pressed her palm against his abdomen.
The effect was immediate.
Mana ripped from his Gate, and agony tore through every nerve in his body.
"AAAGH!"
The scream ripped out of him, raw and involuntary.
It passed as quickly as it came. Betty withdrew her hand, and the pain evaporated. But the shock had done its work. Subaru's eyes refocused, just slightly, consciousness clawing its way back to the surface.
"Can you hear me now?" Gojo leaned in close, waving a hand in front of his face. "Because if you can't, we're doing that again."
The threat landed. Subaru shuddered, and finally, something behind his eyes stirred.
"...Gojo?"
His voice came out thick, slurred, saliva trailing from the corner of his mouth.
"There we go. Knew it'd work." Gojo nodded, satisfied. "Talk to me. What happened?"
He held Subaru's gaze, steady and unflinching.
"If you want payback, start by telling me everything. From the state you were in, someone put you through hell. With Puck and Grimm both there, the fact that it still went this wrong means Emilia probably didn't make it either."
A beat.
"Or did you watch it happen? Someone you love, tortured to death right in front of you, and you couldn't do a thing about it?"
The words came out light, almost casual, each one a scalpel.
It wasn't cruelty. If he softened now, if he let Subaru sink back into that void, they'd lose him again. The only way through was forward, and forward meant keeping the wound open long enough to drain it.
...
Get early access to 40 chapters ahead on my Patreon!
patreon.com/fawkess