The three Trials Echidna had set were 'Face Your Past,' 'Behold an Unthinkable Present,' and 'Face the Disaster That Is Yet to Come.'
The first of these was the very obstacle Emilia found hardest to cross: her forgotten 'past,' the most fragile part of her life, laid bare and defenseless within the Trial's illusion.
Under Roswaal's original plan, he was to have tampered slightly with Puck, so that at the crucial moment Emilia would temporarily lose her greatest reliance in this world and the Trial's difficulty would redouble.
Though Puck was the Beast of the End, the Puck bound to Emilia was only an avatar of his true self, so altering a few things would have been simple enough for Roswaal. But Yimi had already used the D4C – Love Train on Puck back at the mansion, and on their first day here Ram had beaten Roswaal to a pulp.
Now, on top of being forbidden to chase Yimi, he'd also sworn a Vow not to lay hands on Natsuki Subaru and the others again—so of course he had no opening left.
"Geuse, Mother Fortuna..."
Just as Geuse had said, some things really were better forgotten. To know whom she had lost, to know that everyone in the forest had been frozen by her own hand—the taste of it left Emilia in such pain she could scarcely take another step forward.
But she hadn't yet reached the point of breaking.
So that was it. That was what the look Geuse had given her a few days ago had meant.
...
"You don't seem the least bit worried." Beatrice sat on a stool, earnestly leafing through the book in her hands.
"Probably because I believe Emilia can definitely pass that Trial, whatever it is?" Natsuki Subaru sat on the floor, doing handicrafts with cardboard.
He might be a shut-in, but not the useless kind. Beyond sports, he was skilled at cross-dressing, voice-mimicry, handicrafts and the like, though it was a shame that in another world these talents had nowhere to shine.
Still, the earlier frog-prince business seemed to have shown him a bit of a business opportunity—say, copying out fairy tales and selling them in this world...
"Done."
As for handicrafts, he could even carve a Gundam-shaped ice sculpture, so dressing up Little White into a passable little tank with some cardboard was no great feat.
He set the cat-form Yimi into the opening at the top of the tank, leaving only her head sticking out.
"Meow?"
"Good. Lieutenant Yimi—advance on Beako!"
Vrrr—
Under Natsuki Subaru's push, Little White advanced toward Beako. Its paper gun-barrel pressed against Beatrice's shin, bent instantly, and sent the whole of Little White tipping onto its side.
"Meow!" Yimi scrambled out of the tank at once.
Beatrice shot Natsuki Subaru a glance and gave a cold little snort.
"A little girl who reads all day will turn into a bookworm, you know." Subaru reached over, snatched the book from her hands, and took a look.
He recognized only a handful of the characters; two of them seemed to be 'child-rearing'?
"You're a little girl yourself. Why read a book like this?"
"Mu! How rude!" Beatrice hurriedly snatched it back. "A creature like you, who only ever thinks about what's for the next meal, will never understand the joy of gaining new knowledge."
Though ever since she'd been shut in the Forbidden Library, reading had gone from a hobby to very nearly her only means of leisure.
"For a human like me, who might not even make it to seventy, wasting a whole life on studying would just be miserable, wouldn't it?"
Subaru noticed that the instant he finished speaking, Beatrice lowered her head, looking a little crestfallen.
"Sorry."
For a Great Spirit whose lifespan neared the infinite, and who couldn't even take her own life, watching the people who kept her company leave one after another must be very painful.
Beako soon pulled herself back together, hauled Yimi onto her lap, and smoothed her fur with an increasingly practiced hand. "The book says clothes are best changed every two days. Yours have gone nearly half a month without a change, haven't they?"
Yimi flicked her ears and gave no reply.
"Tomorrow I'll have Rem trim your hair, and then you'll learn to braid it properly, understand? And your reading, too—Betty's picked out some books suitable for you. The best way to learn to read is by reading..."
Yimi looked up at her, cautious. "Betty."
"What is it? Sick of studying already?"
"I'm about, to leave soon." Yimi didn't quite know why, but it felt somehow like a bad thing to say aloud.
"Ah, Betty understands. If you don't want to study, Betty won't force you. You're already so strong anyway—you don't even need Betty's contract, hmph!"
Yimi's ears drooped. "I really am, going to leave."
Beatrice pinched her whiskers. "Now Betty really is going to get angry—don't tell lies like that! Betty has already checked you over from top to bottom; there is nothing wrong with you at all."
"Or is it that you want to leave? Betty understands now—after all, you're so frightened of Roswaal, and that man really is black-hearted... No help for it, then. Since you can't take care of yourself, Betty will just have to take care of you." Beatrice tilted her chin up and turned her face away.
Even though she couldn't so much as cook a decent meal.
"I'm going, to leave this world and, go find Mama."
Yimi retracted her claws slightly. This was, perhaps—after very nearly starving to death—the greatest predicament she'd met in all her cat life, though she didn't quite know where the difficulty lay.
"So haven't I already told you—"
Beatrice slowly lowered both hands. "Wherever you're going, take Betty with you!"
It had been four hundred years. She'd endured four hundred years of loneliness. And though half a month was terribly brief set against four hundred years, though she didn't even know whether this little girl was the daughter of Minerva, the Witch of Wrath, or of Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony...
She'd thought she had finally gained something, only to lose it in the end all the same—even though, as a Great Spirit, she should have been prepared to lose it from the very start.
"But, I can't, take people." Yimi shifted back into human form, her small hands clasped together as if in guilt.
Beatrice took two steps back, away from her. "Must you hurt Betty like this...?"
Mother, and Brother, and Roswaal, and Ryuzu. Why you too?
So it had all been her own wishful thinking? Of course. Every one of these feelings was nothing but her own wishful thinking, only that and nothing more.
"Don't cry." Yimi lifted a sleeve to wipe her tears. "A week at most, and I'll, come back to play with Betty."
The kitty could almost go home now. The kitty had always been a naughty cat who loved to run around everywhere and make Granny cross.
"Beako..."
Faced with the scene before him, Natsuki Subaru felt only the awkwardness of a boy who'd gone to a friend's house as a child and walked in right as the friend's mother was hitting and scolding him.
"The 'other world' Yimi's talking about probably isn't the one you're picturing. It really just means another place—like my own hometown."
He wasn't surprised by this, honestly; the little cat had even pulled out a smartphone.
For a moment he wanted to open his mouth and ask Yimi to take him along too, because his parents still existed. But thinking of Emilia, still striving through her Trial, the words died in his already-open mouth before a single syllable could escape.
Beatrice just wept, though she'd thought her tears had long since run dry.
"You promise? Only gone a week, is that right?"
A week was brief, but the fact that Yimi was leaving at all offered Beatrice no sense of security.
"I promise."
Beatrice caught hold of Yimi's hand. "You may have many friends, but Betty..."
Maybe you're all I have.