AN: Title was unknowingly provided by RogertheHomelessKing in a Reddit comment. Loved the comment, so I decided to name the chapter this...as you can already see. I'm gonna stop talking now. BTW he writes his own FF so check it out!

Beta Reader² - Beta Reader = JDUBZ!



Chapter 24: Operation G.S.A.B.H.A.

"Please say hi to Subaru for me," Her purple eyes downcast, Emilia then also told Rem, "and tell him that I'm sorry, I didn't mean for him to run away."

"Rem will tell Subaru-kun, Lady Emilia." Rem bowed to Emilia, a smile on her face.

She felt guilty about it, but Rem secretly thought that if Emilia never yelled at Subaru then he may not have fallen for Rem. It was something that she didn't want to think about, but at the same time, it was something she couldn't help but think about. Seeing Emilia, there was no way to avoid those thoughts.

Puck emerged from within Emilia's silver hair, and floated in front of Rem, "And give him one of these for making my daughter worry." Puck began shadow boxing, throwing a few jabs and punches with an uppercut or two.

Not quite understanding the joke, Rem gasped, putting a hand to her chest, "Rem would never hurt her Subaru-kun! He is too precious to Rem!"

Emilia pat Puck on the head, saying in a worried voice, "That's not a nice thing to do to Subaru just for leaving." She put a finger to her lips, thinking, "Maybe a genuine scolding, but no more than that."

Puck had a look of defeat, staring at both Rem and Emilia with his mouth open. He slowly retreated into Emilia's hair, "I never should have woke up this morning."

"Puck?" Emilia poked the area of her hair that Puck disappeared into. When Puck didn't answer, Emilia returned her attention to Rem, "When do you leave, Rem?"

Rem smiled with hunched shoulders, "As soon as Ken wants to. Rem would rather leave tomorrow, but Ken insists on getting Oki back home." Rem looked in the distance where Ken was talking to Oki in the grass amidst the ruins of the battle that had been fought. Ken pointed at Oki's stump for a left hand and then pointed at Oki's chest, a serious expression on his face. Oki just nodded every once in awhile.

Smiling at the sight of their little conversation, Rem asked Emilia, "So Lady Emilia chooses to stay?"

Emilia put her hands together, "Oh um yes. I cannot leave Lugnica borders while I am still a candidate for the throne."

Accepting her answer, Rem wished Emilia farewell. Walking around the Housing Area, Rem found Beatrice using magic to repair the broken houses. With her magic, even the tiniest splinter of wood was able to find its place among the ruined houses.

Rem waited until Beatrice finished repairing the house to approach her, "Thank you, Lady Beatrice, for helping Lady Emilia. Without you, Lady Emilia wouldn't be alive right now." It was true, had Beatrice not shielded Emilia from the cultists, she would likely have been killed. Not only that, but Oki, Ken, and Rem too. She was truly thankful.

Beatrice said matter of factly, "Well, it's not like I had any other choice, I suppose. If I didn't do it, who else would, I suppose?"

"Rem would have tried, but she would not have lasted." Rem spoke the truth when it came to this, during the fight she almost depleted all of her mana, so if she had to fend off all 20 of the cultists that attacked them, Rem knew she wouldn't have made it. She thanked Beatrice one last time, "Thank you, Lady Beatrice."

"You already said that, I suppose." Beatrice returned to repairing the houses.

Rem left Beatrice and moved on, going to Ken and Oki. Ken was still talking to Oki in a serious manner.

"It's too dangerous here, Oki. We have to leave ASAP." Ken was slapping his palm with the back of his other hand.

Oki waved his stump in front of Ken, "I know, Ken! How many times do I have to say 'I know' before you finally accept the fact that I know!"

Ken crossed his arms and looked away, "I don't know."

Rem walked up to Ken, "Rem can only assume that Ken wants to leave now?"

Reinhard snuck up from behind Rem, "Looks that way to me." His injuries were completely healed, Rem had helped out initially, but left it to the more experienced healer when it came to the more serious injuries. "I would like to personally thank you three for helping out in keeping Candidate Emilia safe from harm."

After bowing, Reinhard Looked at each of the three, "I hope we meet again in the near future, I will be looking forward to it." Reinhard put a hand to his chest, "If there is anything you need at any time, remember, I am in your debt, I will help with whatever you need."

Rem bowed to Reinhard, "Thank you, Reinhard, but we will have to save that for another day. Our only wish is to go home."

Reinhard nodded, his red hair getting in his eyes, "I understand." He brushed the hair aside, "Then this is my farewell to you. I wish you all good luck. Until next time," Reinhard turned and walked away.

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Knock knock knock

Rem woke up to the sound of knocking at the front door. Unwrapping her arms from a body pillow she was spooning, Rem slowly got out of bed.

Outside, the noon sun was shining through the curtains of what used to be Rem and Subaru's room. However, with Subaru's disappearance, it became Rem's room. It's only temporary. Subaru-kun will be back.

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Rem slowly made her way to the bathroom. Turning the faucet on, she began to wash the sleep out of her face. Now fully awake, Rem looked at the mirror. Eeeeeee.

Rem's blue hair was sticking out at different angles. Quickly grabbing a brush, Rem began flattening it down. She still felt she needed to look presentable to whoever was at the door. When she was done the knocking continued.

Knock knock knock

Rem called out to the visitor, "Coming!"

Making her way to the front door, Rem gave herself one last look in the mirror, still in her night dress. Thinking she'll change later, Rem opened the front door.

In front of her stood Subaru. His usually intense eyes softened as he looked on Rem, the same way they always did, a tear fell down one of them. Rem didn't know what to do, her first instinct was to tackle him in a hug, but another part of her said to not be so over dramatic. From Subaru's lips came a voice that Rem felt she hadn't heard in years, when in reality it had only been weeks, "I love you, Rem."

In her utter shock, Rem fell to her knees, her mouth hanging agape as Subaru bent down to hug her. Her hero was back to keep Rem safe and happy. Rem felt the warmth of Subaru's arms and chest, and enjoyed the comfort Subaru gave her. Wrapping her own arms around Subaru, Rem cried into his shoulder, tears of joy soaking Subaru's track suit. Hugging him tighter, Rem whispered, "Subaru-kun…"

Rem didn't even care why Subaru left, all she wanted was to be in his arms for the rest of her life. Subaru didn't let go as he said, "I love you so much, I'll never leave you again," Before Rem could say anything, Subaru said, "but there is something I need you to do."

Rem pulled herself from Subaru to look at him in the eyes, "Anything for Rem's Subaru-kun."

Subaru's smile widened, giving Rem a kiss on the lips. He cupped one of her cheeks in his hand, Rem placed one of her own hands over his. Subaru caressed her cheek with his thumb, wiping away the still falling tears, "I need you to wake up."

Rem stopped crying, "What?"

Subaru moved his hand from her cheek to the top of her head, "I need you to wake up, Rem."

"R-Rem doesn't understand."

Subaru grasped Rem's shoulders, "Wake up, Rem." He began shaking Rem, shocking her, "Wake up!"

"Wake up, Rem!"

"Hmmmuhhhh." Rem woke up to the sound of Oki calling to her, shaking her shoulder. They were currently at Rem's house. After arriving back in Kararagi 49 days ago, Oki had insisted on visiting Rem almost everyday to keep her company. Treating her like his daughter, Oki often brought candy or treats to give to Rem.

Rem shot up, looking around for Subaru, but found nothing. It was….a dream?"

"Are you OK, Rem?" Looking over at Oki, Rem answered his question with feigned cheerfulness.

"Yes, Oki, Rem is fine."

Oki looked worried, "Are you sure, Rem?" Oki didn't want to say it, but had been crying in her sleep. Upon seeing this, Oki had decided to wake her up.

Rem nodded, a pained look in her eyes, "Rem is sure."

Oki patted Rem's head, "It's OK, Rem. We'll get him back, I promise."

Rem's pained look disappeared, replaced by hope. Her cheeks reddened as she shyly asked, "Pinky promise?"

Oki smiled, holding out his pinky that was larger than Rem's, he wrapped it around her's, "I pinky promise, Rem."

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"And then I say to him, I say, 'Who you calling fat? I'm big boned!' Ahahahahahahahahaha!"

Ken and Rem looked at each other, both not understanding the 'joke' Oki just made.

Rem tugged at Oki's sleeve, "Umm, Oki? We don't get it."

Oki was still laughing, wiping a tear from his eyes, "Don't, don't worry about it. Hehe. It's just something that came up in my head. Hahahaha."

Ken put down a cup of water he had in his hands, saying With slight sarcasm, "Well, that was a wonderful joke Oki, but what does that have to do with Subaru?"

Oki and Ken had decided to meet up at Rem's house to speak with her about their next move. Rem had thought shew ould be going into Graden Forest alone, but Oki and Ken had insisted on coming; Ken, wanting to prove his worth, and Oki, wanting to protect Rem and keep her safe for Subaru. As of now, they were discussing what they should do.

Oki started to calm his laughter, "Nothing, nothing, I just really wanted to tell it because I thought you guys would've gotten a kick out of it."

Ken lightly slapped Oki's arm with the back of his hand, "Well can we please get back on topic?"

Rem agreed to Ken's idea, "Rem agrees, we don't have much time. Planning is very important."

Oki crossed his arms, "So what do we know?"

Ken pulled out a notepad he had in his pocket. "Well let's see. Graden Forest is known to be free of any Demon Beasts, luckily for us. However, Demon Beasts are also known to wander, so you never know if we'll run into one."

Rem put a hand up, "And if we do, Rem will take care of it."

Oki wrapped his arm with the stump around Rem, "That's my girl."

Ken continued, "Riiiiight, anyway, Graden is huge, with the most distance from one side to the other being 150 miles and shortest being 100 miles. With no clear idea of where the clock tower is then we should start looking for the clock tower ASAP. If we don't then we'll be walking blind."

Oki and Rem nodded every once in a while, taking in the information Ken was spewing out.

"Also, the forest is thick with trees, so travel by dragon carriage is a no go, we'll have to do everything on foot. Worst case scenario, it takes more than 13 days to find the tower if we go in blind, but we don't want that right?" Rem and Oki shook their heads.

"Good, neither do I. Now onto the plan. Rem, you said that the clock towers were supposed to replace the Time Towers, right?"

"Yes, Subaru-kun said so."

Ken put his hands together in delight, "This is great, the Time Towers are...what, 300 feet tall? So the clock tower must have the same dimensions since it was created as a replacement. This'll make scouting easier for us, the tower will be easily visible from over the trees. We only have one problem: time."

Rem shifted in her seat, "What does Ken mean?"

Ken pulled off his watch and held it up, pointing to it, "Time, we don't know how much we'll need. We've got 10 days to cover 15,000 square miles, I don't know about you guys, but that seems like a lot of land to cover in 10 days."

Oki held his hand up, "Question: why didn't we do this earlier?"

"Because the first few weeks here, I had to reinstate my pub back into the market. I had to prove my ownership of the pub and go through so much paperwork just to reclaim my spot of business. Plus it didn't help that not much is known about Graden since nobody ever goes inside because it's so dense." Ken put a hand to his head, "Crap, I'm gonna have to do the same paperwork when I get back."

Oki spoke again, "So Operation Get-Subaru's-Ass-Back-Here-Already is a go, when do we start?"

Ken put his watch down, not quite agreeing with the title, but he let it slide, "If we can, we start tomorrow."

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Rem jumped over a giant fallen tree, the bark rotting and covered in moss. Thick trees surrounded her as she walked through the quiet forest. The only sound came from chirping birds and the soothing sound of wind rustling the leaves in the trees.

Taking a deep breath, Rem inhaled the sweet smells of nature. A snapping sound behind her made her turn. Rem saw Oki crawling over the fallen tree that she had jumped over. With a stump in place of his left hand, climbing over a giant tree trunk proved to be slightly more difficult for him.

Grunting, Oki called to Rem, "Ooooff, hey wait up!" Oki threw himself over the trunk, falling to the forest floor, and onto his back. "Well, that hurt a lot more than I thought it would."

Rem helped up Oki by grabbing hold of his right hand.

Ken emerged from over the trunk next, struggling, "You know Oki, it would be a real help if you could NOT break the branches on the trunks, I need to use them as handles to climb the damn thing."

Oki brushed the dirt from his shirt and pants, "Not my fault, you insisted on me going first."

For 8 days they searched the forest, looking for any sign of the clock tower. Everyday, they woke up and packed up their camp to scan the forest. It wasn't easy, while the forest was beautiful and apparently safe, it was really big and they probably haven't even covered half of the forest.

On multiple occasions, Ken had tried to give up, saying he would rather risk dying by going back alone than to keep moving to find nothing. It always ended with Oki snapping him back to his senses.

"I'm not doing it!"

"You can and you will!"

"No! I said I'm not doing it! End of story! I'm going back!"

"Are you saying you quit?!"

"I am not a quitter! I am merely preventing myself from wasting anymore time looking for something that may or may not exist!"

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh come off it, Oki. Even you have your doubts! Look at where we are, why the hell would someone build something out here?!"

"I don't know, but at least I'm taking that chance. Besides, you leave now, you're leaving me and Rem when we need you! I may someday forgive you, but I know Rem never will!"

Every time this argument occurred, Oki would calm Ken down. Ken would apologize every time, but then repeat it the next day. Thankfully, this day's tantrum had already occurred.

The orange sky told them that it was evening. Soon, their 8th day would be coming to an end.

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The three decided to set up camp in a small clearing they found. Oki and Ken shared a tent while Rem got one to herself. That night, they decided to stay out a while longer than normal to watch the stars. The three laid down in a circle around a fire that Oki had made.

Laying down on the soft grass, Rem stared at the stars, wondering if Subaru was looking at the same ones she was. She thought about when she would see Subaru again, and wasn't sure what she would say when she got to the clock tower. Now that she thought about it, Subaru had said that she had to go to the tower, but didn't say if he himself would be there. What if Subaru-kun isn't there? What will Rem do?

A rustling sound interrupted Rem's thoughts. Lifting her head up to look into the trees, Rem saw nothing. Despite this, Rem still got up. The crunching of leaves came from the left.

"What was that?" Ken was up and alert.

Hearing the noise as well, Oki got to his feet. Fearing the worst, he grabbed a branch from the floor that was going to be used a firewood, holding it with his only hand.

Rem tried to pinpoint the location of the sound, but found that there was more than one thing out there and whatever they were, they were moving constantly. Some of the sounds overlapped each other as if trying to make it hard for the three to determine the number of opponents they were up against.

All at once, the movements stopped, leaving the three in total silence, not even the sounds of crickets breaking it. Rem kept staring into the darkness between the trees, trying to detect any movement. Something glowing slowly came into view from behind a tree. Below it were two red eyes, reflecting the light coming from the campfire. Wolgarms.

Oki lowered the stick, "Well, I guess it was j-." Seeing something pounce at him from the trees, he had just enough time to swing the stick. The wolgram that Oki hit yelped, falling to the ground, and then got back on its feet. The wolgram snarled at Oki, its fangs dripping with blood from its last meal.

Ken raised his hand, summoning a spear of ice to impale the wolgram. Before he could launch it another wolgram leapt towards him and bite down on his arm. Ken screamed in pain, yelling, "Fuck!"

Using his other hand, Ken grabbed the icicle floating in his other palm, sinking it into one of the wolgram's eye. To escape Ken, the beast let go of his arm. Ken cocked his leg back and kicked the beast as hard as he could in it's stomach. The beast whimpered as it flew, landing next to the fire, bleeding and in pain. Filled with anger, Ken grabbed onto the beast's throat to keep it from snapping at him. Ken reached for a stick in the fire that was burning but was safe to touch on one end.

"Ya' fuckin' hungry?" Ken shoved the burning end into the wolgram's mouth. A sizzling was heard as the burning wood cooked the throat of the wolgram. The beast tried shaking it's head to remove the wood, but Ken kept it in place, shoving it in further whenever he got the chance. Finally feeling merciful, Ken removed himself from the beast. The wolgram flipped onto its legs and spit out the wood. Before it could think of running, an icicle dug a hole in its brain.

Meanwhile, Oki and Rem dealt with their own beasts. After Oki hit his wolgram, it pounced onto Oki's chest, causing him to loose his balance and fall to the floor. The beast began snapping its jaws, trying to get to Oki's neck. With the branch still in his hand, Oki whacked the beast's head. Stunned, the beast shook his head and continued its focus on Oki, but was thrown off. The beast flew through the air before landing on its feet. With Oki still on his back, the beast jumped towards him. Anticipating this, Oki kicked the beast in the face, stopping it from coming any closer. Oki got back on his feet, readying his fist. The beast shook its head, recovering from the kick. Giving one last attempt to take down the human, the beast pounced at Oki's face. With lighting fast reflexes, Oki grabbed the beast by the neck, lifting it high into the air, He slammed the beast down onto the ground, his palm snapping the beast's neck and instantly killing it.

As Rem stared at the glowing eyes in the darkness, she knew it would be a problem. She produced an icicle in her hand.

The wolgram ran out of the woods, snarling as it approached Rem at a fast pace. She shot the ice missed at the beast, but the monster dodged the attack and gained speed. The beast pounced towards Rem, but just as it reached it's target, Rem's fist caved in the beast's skull.

Two more beasts came from the woods to attack Rem. Both attacked at the same time from two different directions. Taking out her morning star, Rem smashed one beast while the other went for her legs. Before it could take a chunk out of her calf, Rem threw her fist down on top of its head, spreading its brains and skull fragments all over the ground.

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"I'll take first watch."

Ken sat outside the tents, tending to the fire and watching the trees to make sure nothing crept up on them in their sleep. His wounds were healed thanks to Rem's healing magic.

The sound of nature returned after the fight with wolgram's. Ken laid on his back, enjoying the sweet sounds. He listened to the howling winds and crickets, feeling so at peace. The stars glowed brightly overhead, lighting up the sky. From between the trees, Ken saw the moon.

Wait, that's not the moon.

Ken got up from the ground and walked into the dark woods. Moving closer to get a clearer look, Ken noticed that the 'moon' had numbers and lines along its circumference. It was the first man made building Ken had seen in over a week.

The clock tower.

"A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work."

-Colin Powell