Rival candidates sharing one room—it hadn't quite reached the point of drawn swords, but overall the atmosphere was much as Subaru had imagined. Which is to say, the others weren't being remotely gracious toward Emilia.
Setting aside the first-impression penalty of being a white-haired half-elf, and not counting the thief Felt, who'd been forced to dress up nicely for her entrance, Emilia was the only one whose background carried no real competitive weight, and who was so plainly guileless.
Even Felt at least had Reinhard, the world's strongest, standing as her First Knight in support. Emilia, by contrast, looked for all the world like she'd come utterly alone; the Margrave backing her hadn't even arrived.
Under the indoor lights, the bloodstains on the long spear seemed to throw off a glare too fierce to look at directly, stinging the eyes of everyone present.
"Reinhard..."
The Dragon Sword possessed its own will, and would only unsheathe itself for a worthy enemy—and "worthy" here wasn't as simple as some knightly code about sparing the old and the young.
Someone like Elsa, who'd once driven Subaru to despair, or even the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, might not necessarily qualify. Put another way, anyone who could make Reinhard bare his blade counted among the very strongest fighters this world had—and even they wouldn't necessarily last two exchanges in front of him.
With him present, no one had been especially on edge. Now, though, he'd cranked the tension in the room to an extraordinary pitch.
"Ow."
The scabbard had skimmed right past a pair of cat ears—missing Yimi entirely, but landing square on the smooth forehead of Beatrice, who'd been trailing behind her. She clutched it with both hands and crouched down, rubbing.
"Betty!"
Yimi puffed up her cheeks and glared at Reinhard. With the Insect Glaive's classic opening stance, she tapped the ground and vaulted, bursting out a wave of mana that scattered the guards hemming in Subaru and Rom-jii—fulfilling her promise to protect Subaru.
Then a Vaulting Dance through the air brought her in close, and she swung the middle of the spear's shaft straight at Reinhard's head.
An opening strike couldn't land. Not Reinhard's first attack, nor the second, nor anything after—
Beyond that, Reinhard possessed a whole roster of Divine Protections too long to fit on a single page, all stemming from a single Divine Protection called the Acquired Divine Protection: any blessing others could only be born with, he could simply obtain at will.
If this world had a god, he'd be nothing less than the god's own son.
Naturally, then, in Yimi's uncomprehending eyes, her strike really did seem about to curve away over his head at the last instant—until, the next second, she clenched her small hand and, with the force of a Miracle, wrenched the shaft forcibly back on course.
Now it was Reinhard's turn to feel a flicker of surprise. In that span of barely 0.01 seconds left to guard, he nonetheless managed to interpose the Dragon Sword in the gap between them.
"Nn?"
They held there for about two seconds. Reinhard could feel the pressure on his arm mounting—as though this child intended, no matter what he said, to get one good rap in on his skull today.
"Stop it, now!"
It wasn't until a nearby pillar split under the compressed mana and the very floor began to tremble that Emilia finally snapped out of it, clenched her fist, and cried out to stop them.
At a moment like this, nothing but words could serve as a third party's intervention.
Julius shielded Anastasia in front of him.
What had Mimi been roughhousing with yesterday?
Emilia's words did their work. Yimi certainly wouldn't listen to Subaru—but she still owed a little courtesy to the person who'd promised her a sweet.
By unspoken agreement, the two of them redirected the force in their hands upward. The blast of pure mana struck the ceiling; seen from outside, a column of light surged dozens of meters up out of the hall, and because the shattered fragments of the building crumbled to dust in an instant, no unlucky bystander was caught in the fallout.
"I can apologize."
Reinhard set the flat of the Dragon Sword's blade to the ground, showing his sincerity—and keeping its lately temperamental edge from turning toward a small child's face.
Even so, after that exchange of blows with no killing intent behind it, Reinhard could tell this child likely did possess power enough to harm him. If she'd been easy to brush aside, he wouldn't have let the venue take this much damage.
Because of Reinhard's peculiarity, the mana in the air was drawn off and monopolized whenever he fought, to the point that everyone else present couldn't cast magic—and even felt vaguely unwell.
Yet while everyone else was affected equally, only the little cat standing opposite Reinhard gave off a thick, potent mana radiating from within.
Reinhard—wasn't he supposed to be invincible?
"Yimi, Subaru—why are you two here?" Emilia planted her hands on her hips, unhappy.
"I came following him?" Yimi rubbed Beatrice's forehead for her with one hand while pointing at Subaru with the other.
Emilia had only said to protect Subaru; she hadn't said to stop him from coming.
Emilia took a step back, her eyes hidden in shadow. "I see. Yimi's a good girl who keeps her promises."
But Subaru, by contrast, had ignored what she'd said the day before and shown up here anyway.
Subaru scrambled to his feet, waving his hands. "I'm innocent, Emilia—I can explain, and besides..."
He wanted to say that yesterday she'd only decided on her own that he couldn't come, that he'd never actually agreed—but even he knew saying that would only make him look worse.
"Subaru, please leave." Emilia's voice came out merciless. "That's enough."
"But... I didn't want this either. I just wanted to stand openly at your side, so you wouldn't have to stand there alone—I didn't want to show up here like this!"
"Please see him out."
The two guards glanced at Yimi with lingering dread, then clapped Subaru on the shoulder. Although everyone had written her off, Emilia's standing as a candidate was still enough for them to overlook everything that had just happened.
Emilia unclenched her fist and looked down at Yimi. "I'm sorry—could I trouble you to see Subaru out? Don't let him do anything foolish again."
"You really are too kind. But don't go pushing all your troubles onto us. Betty isn't his nanny, forever keeping an eye on him. Whether he stays or goes, that's for the two of you to sort out."
Beatrice lifted her hand from her forehead, took out the ribbon, and tied the now-settled Yimi's hair into a small, neat braid.
"Nn."
Yimi glanced back at Reinhard, gave his head one tap with the Spear of Longinus, patted Emilia's hand, and followed after Beatrice.
Crusch, one of the candidates, tilted her head to look up at the sky, then turned to her follower. "Have you ever seen this child before?"
Felix's ears twitched. "Old Man Wilhelm said she claims to have taken down the White Whale—but I figured it was just a kid talking nonsense, so I never told Crusch-sama."
"The White Whale... has already been killed?" Crusch's brow furrowed slightly, and she looked toward Emilia.
Only once Reinhard had, with some reluctance, sheathed his sword did the nobles on the platform breathe a little easier, one of them offering Emilia consolation: "Emilia-sama, your attendant may be reckless, but he clearly cares a great deal about you."
Emilia gave a small shake of her head. "Subaru isn't my attendant."
If he cared about her, how could he have ignored what she'd said yesterday and shown up here?
With every ounce of her mind fixed on being hurt and angry over Subaru's behavior, she didn't even notice—she'd forgotten to declare that Yimi, too, was not one of her supporters.
Reinhard rubbed the spot on his head where he'd been tapped, looked down at the Dragon Sword he could no longer draw, and sank into thought.