Betelgeuse and Regulus were arguing again.
Subaru should have expected it. She really should've. It was like tossing a box of firecrackers into a volcano and then acting surprised when everything exploded. Betelgeuse was all twitchy fanaticism and unhinged romantic monologues about love and sacrifice and divine will. He had the emotional stability of a wet tissue and the volume of a war horn. Regulus, on the other hand, was a walking narcissistic paradox—calm and smug one moment, snarling and explosive the next, all while hiding behind a thin layer of faux-civility and obsession with control. If Betelgeuse was a sermon on madness, Regulus was a thesis on entitlement.
So of course, the two clashing meant chaos.
"You lack true devotion!" Betelgeuse howled, jerking his head so violently it was a wonder his neck didn't snap. His fingers twitched like spiders on fire, and his pacing had already worn a path into the stone floor. "You blind yourself to the glory of purpose, the wonder of sacrifice, the divinity of love! Such bliss, such divine suffering—"
"Oh shut the hell up already," Regulus snapped, arms folded over his chest, lounging like a prince in his velvet-lined chair as if the screams echoing around him were no more bothersome than a breeze. His expression was that of someone deeply unimpressed, eyes half-lidded, one brow barely twitching. "Devotion? That's your answer? That's your great justification? You dress up obsession like it's some holy virtue. All I hear is weakness. Needing someone or something outside of yourself just proves how incomplete you are."
Betelgeuse halted mid-pace, limbs locking up like his entire nervous system had hit a glitch. His eye twitched. And then twitched again. His entire face contorted like he was trying to hold in an explosion.
Subaru watched all of this from her throne at the top of the dais, one leg draped casually over the other, fingers tapping in a slow, deliberate rhythm against the throne's cold obsidian armrest. Her eyes scanned the room with a mixture of apathy and disbelief. This again.
Her throne, towering and etched with gold veins like a divine fossil, gave her the air of some queenly final boss pulled straight from the most dramatic JRPG ever conceived. And she wore that presence like a cloak—even if internally, she was one sarcastic comment away from facepalming into another plane of existence.
"Nonsense!" Betelgeuse screamed, back arching unnaturally as he hurled himself to the floor, writhing like a man possessed—which, to be fair, was a bit redundant in his case. "Such blindness! Such utter foolishness! You blaspheme, you mock what you cannot understand! Love is suffering, and suffering is the only path to salvation!"
Regulus audibly sighed. "You're so dramatic. Honestly, this whole mess—this entire ridiculous cult—would run so much smoother if we trimmed the dead weight."
"You dare—!" Betelgeuse's voice cracked into a high-pitched wail, fingers digging into the floor like claws.
Around them, the other Sin Archbishops were gathering. Sirius stood to the side, swaying, her chains rattling softly as she absorbed the tension in the air like a giddy parasite. The cultists had formed a loose ring around the two men, whispers flitting through the air like sparks over oil. Some were clearly worried. Others were clearly enjoying the show way too much.
Subaru exhaled.
Okay, enough.
She rose from her throne, and the room plunged into instant silence.
Her power, whatever it was, unfurled around her like smoke. Black mist rolled outward from her feet, licking the edges of the stairs like it had a will of its own. The cultists froze. The archbishops stilled. Betelgeuse paused mid-convulsion. Regulus tensed, eyes flicking toward her, wariness briefly breaking through his smug exterior.
She descended slowly, each step deliberate, her boots clicking softly against the marble stairs. She let the silence stretch. Let the weight of her presence settle like gravity made flesh.
She stopped between them. The mist curled around her ankles like an affectionate shadow.
"Enough," she said.
One word. Soft. Cold. Absolute.
Betelgeuse went stock still, as if turned to stone mid-twitch. Regulus didn't speak, but his lips thinned.
She turned to Regulus first, tilting her head slightly. Her voice was almost gentle.
"You. You're insufferable. The 'perfect being,' you said? Really?"
He opened his mouth to retort, but she didn't let him.
"I'll be honest. In this world, nothing perfect exists. That's not poetry—it's reality. And maybe that's why people chase the idea of perfection so desperately. But perfection... is a dead end. A fantasy. A sterile ideal that has no room for growth, imagination, or the beautifully flawed chaos that makes us human. You think being perfect makes you superior? No. It just means you've stopped evolving. You've already lost to me the moment you decided perfection was your goal. Because I don't need to be perfect. I just need to be better than yesterday."
Regulus clenched his jaw, gaze sharp but silent.
Then she turned to Betelgeuse.
"And you," she said with a sigh, her tone shifting like a blade slipping into silk. "You're exhausting."
Betelgeuse recoiled as though struck, one hand pressed to his heart like a martyr.
"You scream about love, about sacrifice, but all I see is a man so broken he's forgotten what it even means. You're clinging to pain because it's the only thing left that feels real to you."
She raised a hand, letting the black mist curl around her fingers like tendrils.
"And both of you—both of you—are wasting my time. You bicker like spoiled children fighting over a broken toy."
Another step forward.
"You're wasting energy, wasting air, wasting thought."
Another.
"And I don't tolerate wasted time."
The mist surged outward, cold and electric. The cultists shivered violently, several dropping to their knees. Betelgeuse spasmed, a strangled noise trapped in his throat. Regulus' fists clenched, knuckles white.
She let the silence expand again, holding the room in the palm of her hand.
Then, she spoke—quietly. The source of this chapter is g.com.
"If you have time to fight like idiots, then you have time to be useful."
Her gaze cut through both of them.
"So choose wisely."
No one moved.
Then Betelgeuse slammed his head against the floor with a wet thud, sobbing joyfully.
"OHHHHH SUCH WISDOM! SUCH MERCY! SUCH DIVINE, COSMIC LOVE! AH! TO BE STRUCK DOWN BY SUCH RIGHTEOUSNESS—I AM UNWORTHY! UNWORTHY!"
Regulus looked away, clicking his tongue, but said nothing.
Subaru didn't wait for them to recover. She turned her back on them, her mist trailing behind her like a royal mantle, and ascended the steps back to her throne. She sat, crossed her legs, and rested her chin against her knuckles.
She had absolutely no idea what she was doing.
But damn if she wasn't getting better at pretending.
Ē~Ē
Subaru stood by the window of her third-floor room, staring down at the training cultists below.
If you could even call it training.
They moved like lunatics—some of them flailing wildly, others twisting their bodies unnaturally, their motions more like a frenzied dance than actual combat drills.
Yet, not all of them were useless.
Some were surprisingly skilled—men and women who had clearly honed their craft, their blades flashing, their movements sharp, efficient, lethal.
But the ones who collapsed from exhaustion?
The ones who pushed themselves too far?
She watched as hooded figures dragged their unconscious bodies away—not for medical aid. Not to recover.
For rituals.
Subaru's stomach curled in disgust.
The Witch Cult wasn't just a group of fanatics.
They were butchers, a religion built on madness and sacrifice, on blood spilled in her name.
And they would kill innocents.
It was only a matter of time.
She knew it.
They knew it.
Everyone in this rotting church knew it.
And even if she was the Final Boss now, even if she was playing the role of the Witch of Envy, even if she had all the power and authority in the world—
She wouldn't let that happen.
She wouldn't let Envy take over.
She wouldn't let her followers slaughter whoever they pleased.
She needed to stop them.
But how?
She had power, sure. Way too much of it.
She could erase them. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
She could consume them.
She could devour their existence entirely.
With a single thought, she could wipe them all away—every single one of them.
But that was too evil.
That was what Envy would do.
She clenched her fists, eyes narrowing.
No.
She had to think.
She had to find a way to control them—to keep them in check without becoming the very monster they worshipped.
But before she could finish that thought—
She spotted something in the corner of her room.
A dead rat.
A small, lifeless thing, lying in the shadows, its body stiff, unmoving, forgotten.
Before she could even think about it, before her mind could even process what she was doing—
It was gone.
Vanished.
Erased.
She hadn't even touched it.
She had just seen it, and something deep inside her reacted instantly.
Her stomach lurched.
Her skin crawled.
Her body felt cold—not from fear, but from the aftertaste.
It wasn't a physical kind of hunger.
She didn't swallow it, didn't feel it go down her throat, didn't chew or digest like a normal person would.
It was worse.
The moment it disappeared, something lingered in her mind—a sensation, a taste, an imprint that didn't belong there.
She shuddered.
Crap. Ew. That was disgusting.
She didn't necessarily eat things with her mouth.
It was more like… consumption in a different way.
A metaphor.
A concept.
She erased things.
And whatever she erased, whatever she removed from existence, left behind something in her.
A trace. A shadow. A piece of what they were.
And that terrified her.
TBC
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