"Meili!"
"It hurts, it hurts..."
Under Emilia's uncomprehending gaze, the "Meili" before them clutched her nearly necrotic face, twitched twice, then tore her own skull in two, her whole body squirming into an entirely different shape—while the discarded lump of flesh gave off white smoke and broke itself down.
"Hahahaha, just kidding, it doesn't hurt at all! What's with you, meat scrap—do you have a pig's nose? Did you catch a whiff of my uncommonly charming fragrance?"
A slender girl with short orange hair, dressed in something as revealing as a bikini and cackling shrilly, now stood before the two of them—someone who looked no more than a little girl herself.
"Bwa~ I am the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop representing Lust, the great Capella Emerada Lugunica!"
"Lugunica..." Emilia murmured the syllables. That was the surname of the royal family that had all dropped dead.
Yimi's hand paused, and she looked up, a little startled. For some reason—even though it didn't really sound alike—hearing this woman's voice, for one instant Yimi thought it was Madoka gone mad.
"So it was you, the one who turned everyone into that state? What did you do to the real Meili!" Emilia stretched both hands level toward Capella, ice spikes—with a rather poor track record so far—poised to fire, looking not very threatening at all.
In all of Roswaal Manor, apart from Roswaal himself, who hadn't come back at all, the one who'd actually spent the least time with Meili was Emilia—though back when Yimi wanted to finish Meili off, Emilia had joined Subaru in voting against it.
"Mmn, do you think they're hideous? Blood-curdling, revolting, repugnant." She stepped a bare, shoeless foot on one of the frogs scattered on the ground, sending the rest scattering in fright.
Her Authority was very simple: the reconstruction of flesh, and not just her own. Unlike the transformation magic of certain fantasies, her reconstruction was a truly permanent change, altering even the very foundation of a creature's life. Unless it was a fate-type ability like Yimi's, ordinary magical means could try to heal it all they wanted and get nowhere. She could also use this Authority to heal her body's injuries; whether beheaded or run through the heart, none of it was any real problem for her, and the excess parts would dissolve on their own.
"Right, right—the very first glance breeds instinctive disgust. No one could love a creature like this. If something with a revolting exterior can't earn 'love' no matter its insides, then can anyone really claim, with a straight face, that liking a person means being drawn to their heart?"
"You're lying!"
Not clear on what was even happening, Yimi cut her off outright and produced solid evidence. "I have never, ever, been grossed out by Puck!"
Puck: "?"
"Puck's very handsome." Emilia shot back, then looked gravely at what lay beneath Capella's feet. "Those frogs—is Meili among them?"
The frogs couldn't answer, only puffing their cheeks and croaking.
"That's awful..."
"My, staring so hard at a person's cute little feet—how embarrassing. Look at these hideous toads. Would anyone place their love in them? Could you love them? You couldn't, could you?" She kicked a frog away. "Because they're revolting. Don't you think these revolting creatures are defiling my dainty little feet? And yet the disgusting toads just happen to be your dear friends—friends, right...?"
BOOM—
With Yimi's upward flick, raw mana shattered the manor from the basement passage upward, forming a pillar of light that shot straight for the clouds. Emilia covered her face, instinctively condensing an ice dome over the frogs on the ground to keep them from getting caught in it.
"Listen when people are talking, you meat scrap. Has my heavenly broadcast already robbed you of basic manners?"
Rain poured over Emilia's face. Overhead was a mass of black clouds impossible to make out in the night, and—just as the villagers had said—a black dragon perched atop the other half of the manor, waggling its brows and pulling faces like that bratty little girl just had.
"A dragon..."
"You're dead for sure!"
Yimi leveled the spearhead at Capella, the bloodstains covering the shaft flowing upward.
"Hm?"
Capella, transformed into a black dragon, glanced up at the rip in the sky. "The Gospel didn't say anything about this. Oh well—today was plenty of fun. Bye-bye, meat scraps. Try placing your 'love' in the flies and the toads, hahahaha—"
Without even revealing her aim, and not stubborn like the other Archbishops, she spread her wings the instant she sensed things were off and flew up toward the sky.
Fwoom—
The sound of something bursting. Yimi blasted the ground with a Mana Burst, propelling herself into the air, then adjusted her posture midair.
"This—"
"Noble Phantasm—Spear That Pierced the Lord!"
The red clinging to the shaft shattered in an instant, hovering in midair around the shaft as blood beads, and—driven by mana—was hurled out together with the shaft, spearing straight into the black dragon's chest.
"Aaah!!"
"Otto."
"What is it, Subaru-san?"
"Stop here—for your own safety, you'd better not come any closer. And you should have a weapon on you for self-defense, right? Lend it to me."
"I do have one, yeah." Otto took out a small dagger and handed it to Subaru.
Subaru took the dagger, his heart sinking. He didn't know whether his save point had refreshed this time, but he couldn't actually let Petelgeuse link up with the Lust Archbishop suspected to be at the manor. He hadn't killed Greed with his own hands earlier; the psychological hurdle between shooting a man dead with a gun and stabbing one to death with a knife were entirely different things—not to mention that what he was about to do could, strictly speaking, be called a betrayal.
Petelgeuse certainly didn't speak like a normal person, but Subaru had still managed to pry a few things out of him—for instance, that the "demon beasts" were probably conjured by that Lust Archbishop, and that they'd somehow learned there was a Tome of Wisdom here. Diego must've told them, right?
His luck was terrible; the next Stasis didn't arrive until he reached the gate of Roswaal Manor. How Rem, Ram, and Meili were doing now, whether Emilia and the others had really met with misfortune—Subaru didn't dare think too deeply about any of it. Time was too short. In just a few hours there was no way he could round up willing reinforcements in the Royal Capital.
Unlike Greed, Sloth clearly knew Lust. To keep things from getting worse, this would be his last chance.
"Hey, Sloth." Subaru held up the oil lamp, eyes fixed intently on the lunatic before him. Even without the dragon carriage, this guy could use the Unseen Hand to hold himself afloat in the air; in the eyes of passersby who couldn't see those things, he must look utterly revolting. Maybe because his emotions were too obvious, Petelgeuse began looking at him with a gaze different from before.
Guess I've got no choice but to charge in? Sorry about this—but you killed me twice, so letting me kill you just once isn't too much to ask, right!
"Geuse."
Just as Subaru was bracing to rush him, Beatrice—who'd hopped down from the Monster Auntie's back right on Yimi's heels—noticed this side. She walked out past the courtyard, her eyes settling on Petelgeuse. "Geuse... is that you?"