It was now several minutes after the battle and everyone was preparing to leave in two teams. One group would head back to the capital for the wounded to take the White Whale's head with them. While the other group would go with Subaru and help fight the Witch's Cult. Crusch and Wilhelm finished a conversation with Subaru on allowing the soldiers and the Fangs of Iron to help him. 

Felix told Rem that she couldn't come along with the group because her injuries were to severe, Subaru walked towards Rem so she would listen to Felix, but she wasn't having any of it.

"Rem, Felix is right you need to rest and go with the other group."

"No! Rem wants to stay with Subaru-kun, So that way you won't get hurt! I can't bear it!"

At this point Subaru couldn't convince her otherwise so he came up with an idea. It was far fetched but it was worth a shot.

"Rem I need you to close your eyes ok?"

"Y-Yes..."

Subaru placed his hand on Rem's forehead and concentrated, he had better Ki control but he never tried using it like this, so it was kinda hard at first. But after a few minutes Subaru got the hang of it and transferred his Ki to Rem so she wouldn't overwork herself.

Rem felt like she was a new person, her mana reserves were completely restored along with her physical injuries, they weren't even there. Rem was good as new, she and Felix couldn't help but be shocked at this. Subaru was never a healer so the fact that he was able to do this shocked both of them. Especially Felix. 

"S-Subaru-kun... what did you do?"

"I used my Ki to heal you. So now you'll be able to come with us. To be honest, I didn't know I could do that stuff with Ki."

"Subaru-kyun is just full of surprises isn't he?"

Hearing this Subaru couldn't help but scratch his head from embarrassment, with that Crusch and her group left to the Capital. Subaru and Rem waved them off and the two met up with Ricardo, Mimi, and the other remaining Fangs of Iron members, as well as Felix and Wilhelm, as they were prepared to discuss the mission.

But Subaru noticed another group was coming towards them.

When they looked over, Mimi was excited to see that her other brother Tivey was coming, along with more of the Iron Fang members. But they also saw someone that angered Subaru and surprised Rem. 

"W...Why is he with them."

"Subaru-kun..."

Ahead of them was Anastasia's knight, the man that whooped Subaru's ass at the castle was none other than Julius, riding a radiant blue ground dragon. His eyes slightly narrowing at the sight of them.

Julius dismounted from his ground dragon and stared at Subaru and Rem, mostly Subaru he couldn't help but noticed some 'changes' to his body.

"I take it your doing well?"

"...Uh yeah totally! Nothing that a little spit and rest wouldn't fix. By the way, have you come up with an appropriate apology for going so rough on an amateur like me?"

"I was talking about your injuries to your pride for the subjugation. But I see you've been doing well since then."

The two laughed, though Subaru's was obviously sarcastic. Julius turned his attention towards Rem and she simply bowed with Julius returning the gesture. After Julius left Subaru let out a bemused sigh. 

The meeting proceeded with Subaru explaining the plans to take down the Witch's Cult and evacuate the villagers. The mood slightly changed when Subaru informed them that there was a Sin Archbishop amongst them. Things calmed down when they decided that Subaru and Wilhelm would be the ones to take him down.

Riding through the highway, Julius caught up with Subaru and Rem.

"So you really pulled out a win?" 

"Huh?''

"The subjugation of the White Whale was a long-standing desire of the Imperial Knights. It seems I owe you my thanks."

"You don't have to force it."

"For putting an end to a calamity that all nations ignored for far to long, I thank you."

"I'm...grateful to you too. For coming to back us up. Even after what happened. About that, I was... Oh, damn it! Crap! I know okay!? I know all to well now! It was my fault. Sorry. I...I apologize."

"I apologize as well. I can't take back my words and actions, but I apologize from the bottom of my heart, for belittling you."

"I'm sorry, but...I hate your guts. I feel bad for what happened, and I'm grateful you're here. But I still hate your guts. Seriously, I hate you from the deepest part of my heart!"

"That's fine. I have no intention of befriending you, either."

After they sorta made up Subaru advanced forward, Rem looked back at Subaru and couldn't help but smile. She knew Subaru wasn't being honest, she knew deep down somewhere that Subaru was truly grateful for Julius coming to back them up.

There was now a cave which lied miles in the outskirts of the village. It was a cave filled with nothing but pained memories for Natsuki Subaru, but it was also where he got his power. At the entrance stood a lone cultist who was staring down the lone Subaru. The Cultist began biting his bottom lip out of pure excitement.

"Welcome fellow believer in love! Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Sin Archbishop representing Sloth, Petelguese Romanee Conti!"

"Yo."

"..."

"You said I am supposed to be loved but I don't feel any of that."

"It happens suddenly for everyone, the moment they realize they are loved. Yes...Lovelovelovelovelove! Hehehehehe!"

"You sure about that?"

"Hmm. Though you do have a thicker smell of it. You wouldn't happen to be Pride would you?"

"Huh?"

"Of the Six Archbishop positions, the seat of Pride is still left vacant!"

He then slowly slid over to Subaru as he shifted his body to turn to him.

"You...let me see your gospel."

"Gospel?"

"My brain...TREMBLES!"

He then shifted through the pages of his own Gospel while laughing manically. He then stopped as he closed the Gospel and looks back at Subaru.

"You. Are. Not. Here? What is the meaning of this? What are you doing here? Answer me!"

Subaru patted away the Gospel that was now right in his face and gave a fake smile.

"Oh! That Gospel, why didn't you say so? Now let me see if I...oh man I messed up!"

"What?"

Subaru placed a palm on his forehead as he seemed to laugh at himself.

"I used it as a coaster last time and it got all dirty...so I threw it out."

"..."

Petelgeuse put an uncharacteristic confused expression, but after a few seconds it became one filled with rage.

"Proof of Love! Unseen Hand!"

From his back, invisible forces unseen by everyone except Subaru emerged from his back. They were the things that hurt Rem and killed her along with Emilia and Ram. Subaru saw several shadow arms with a violet like aura surrounding them launched at Subaru, but before they could grab him, he jumped back and away from their grasp. 

"What!?"

"Your special move is called Unseen Hand right? Well if I can see them, it isn't so special now is it!?"

"You! You can see my Unseen Hand!?"

Just then, two loud yells sounded of as a shockwave hit behind him and collapsed the cave entrance and the Witch Cultists who were watching. Mimi and Tivey let out another Super Scream as the cave collapsed further.

"Enjoy being burned alive you bastards! This is payback for all the horrible things you've done!"

Petelgeuse seemed utterly shocked at the sudden development. He began to rip clumps of his hair off and his eyes began to bleed.

"My Fingers. My hardworking, diligent, innocent fingers Fingers. Such cruel and vicious deaths was not deserved! Ah! MY BRAIN! MY BRAIN TREMBLES!" 

Petelgeuse turned his attention to the Pearlbaton siblings and was about to release his Unseen Hands at them, but...

Subaru moved so fast and quickly summoned his Demon Slayer Sword and swung it at Petelgeuse, The Sin Archbishop couldn't even react as the sword smacked him right in the face, resulting in him being sent back meters away from the Pearlbaton twins. When Petelgeuse looked back he saw Subaru's eyes change into red demonic eyes replacing his pupils as slits. Petelgeuse felt so much fear he couldn't even move, he was frozen on the spot.

"I'm not letting you hurt anymore people you bastard!"

Petelgeuse and Subaru narrowed their eyes at each other.

"Yesyesyesyesyes! I see then! Then it shall be! Let us see which one of us is more worthy to receive the Witch's love! Her love! LOOOOOOO-" 

"Nope sorry but were not going to be doing that. I have someone else in mind!"

Subaru smiled as he looked up in the air, this made Petelgeuse look up. But Wilhelm already landed and swiftly cut him in half like it was nothing.

After the battle, the two young siblings were searching the body for any useful information. But when Tivey came upon Petelgeuse's Gospel, he became to terrified and threw it away.

Subaru made his sword disappear which shocked everyone there, including Wilhelm and went to pick it up and read through it. He couldn't read anything in the book so he decided that he was going to hold on to it and try to decipher the book later.

"Something wrong Felix?"

"Of course! Nyou shouldn't be something so dangerous as reading a Gospel! Nyothing good will come out of it!"

"Some sort of superstition around it huh? Regardless, we need to hold on to this so we can learn more about these people as much as we can. So don't worry I'll be careful!"

"Ferii-chan is doing their best to keep nyou safe! Don't come meowing to me when you get cursed or something!"

With that, Subaru and the other's regrouped with the others and were discussing their accomplishments with their own battles, Subaru took some time to survey the area. That's when he sensed something coming at rapid speeds, suddenly recognizing the all to familiar black hands coming he let out a scream.

"EVERYONE! GET DOWN!"

Rem and everyone else turned around and saw several of their allies up in the air being torn to shreds. They were prepared to attack their assailant, but they were to late their allies were already dead by some invisble force.

"NO!"

They then heard a familiar voice screaming and looked back down to see Subaru being dragged off by something into the woods.

"Subaru-kun!"

Rem chased after him into the woods along with everyone else, but they were blocked by a several Cultists. Rem never lost her momentum and swung her morning star at them, which ended up killing two Cultist. She then used the momentum as she rushed towards the other Cultist, tackling two of them away. One was able to dodge and actually stabbed her in the shoulder.   

Rem stopped running and turned her attention towards the assailant. This startled the Cultist, who couldn't defend himself against from the barrage of punches Rem let loose on his face. 

The others joined in on the battle as well.

Julius and Wilhelm were now running through the forest and could hear Pearlbatons Sonic Scream in the distance. They moved faster and saw that a female cultist was the one that had Subaru and was releasing her Unseen Hands at them. Luckily there was water still falling from their previous attack. Julius quickly summoned is fire spirit to distract the Cultist and make release Subaru from her grasp.

Wilhelm quickly took this opportunity to charge forward and cleanly slice through the Cultist. 

"Life is spilling out. My body is drying out. My diligent lifeforce, my heartbeat is stopping. Ahhhh! My brain tremb-" 

The cultist fell to the ground dead.

While the others had walked back, Subaru saw all around him the gravity of the battle that had taken place. Luckily, Wilhelm was able to give him some warriors advice, which helped Subaru stand firm. Rem came and quickly thanked Wilhelm and nodded.

After the encounter, the party was on their way to the village when suddenly, it seemed that time had stopped for Subaru. Everything was gone, he was the only there. He also noticed that the world became tinted blue, and that all his companions had disappeared. He dismounted from his unmoving ground dragon to investigate. 

Just then, a familiar voice invaded his mind  

"The Flower!"

He instantly recognized it to be Rem's voice, as he looked around and found the flower. Subaru quickly used his anti magic energy and coated it around his finger and shot at the flower, completely destroying it. He looked around and realized that he was freed from his illusion, but the only thing on his mind was to look for Rem.

He looked around and around the area and found some familiar faces huddled near the forest clearing. He rushed over to see them.

"Hey! Is everyone alright!?"

There he ran into Ram, who dressed in some strange white cloak.

"Well, it seems that Rem is here as well. This further confirms that Barusu has not betrayed us."

"Good to see you to Ram. Also, what would make you think that I would betray you? And secondly, why does Rem's presence further that claim?"

"Firstly, Barusu here made some grave errors, as he usually does, and had me assuming so."

"Figures."

"After Rem and Subaru explained the situation to Ram, and soon after they made it to the village. There Subaru would try to convince the villagers to evacuate... though things went downhill when they started putting the blame on Emilia because of her half elf lineage. Subaru was about to lash out but quickly remembered when they had their fight.   

"Was I just being selfish again?"

Luckily Felix was able to snap him out of it and Subaru was able to convince the villagers to evacuate with the help of Ram of course.

While Subaru left to make sure that the defenses were still in tact, he noticed a weird smell and it wasn't pleasant to say the least. It smelled disgusting, when he found the source of the smell it was a Cultist in the carriage disguised as one of the villagers, and he had a bag that was glowing with smoke escaping it.

At that moment Subaru knew what was about to happen. Before he could react the bag exploded and a bunch of Cultist came out and started slaughtering the villagers. The blast was so huge that the shockwaves sent Subaru flying meters away from the attack, knocking him out.

When Subaru came to he was met with Julius and Felix looking down at him, making sure he was alright.

"Thank goodness...You're awake"

Subaru looked around and saw a bunch of Cultist fighting Soldiers who were doing everything in their power to protect the villagers.

"How did they get in the village?"

"They stowed away in the carriages. There was a finger among the merchants, and we didn't take care of him. I failed."

"This is not the time for regrets. We had Tivey and Madame Rem and Ram evacuate to the mansion along with the village children and the injured. Felix, join them and heal whoever you can."

"Got it."

When Felix left, Subaru and Julius rushed to the scene only to find Wilhelm fighting one of the fingers.  

"To think, to think, to think, to think! That you would resist us this much!"

"Your mine!"

Wilhelm thought as he dashed towards the Finger and stabbed his sword into his chest. But the Finger just smiled at him.

"In battle, if one focuses on what the Unseen Hand does, one will fail to see what is invisible. That is sloth, yes?"

The Finger said as he grabbed the blade on his right arm and flashes it to his eye, and self destructed. 

Subaru and Julius could only stare in utter shock. As they witnessed the Finger self destruct and seemingly take Wilhelm with him.

"Wilhelm!"

Subaru and Julius quickly went to Wilhelm's aid as he was still breathing but severely injured, as they were treating him another Finger showed up.

"Why!? Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy!?"

They all turned around to see a female cultist clawing her face and biting her fingers as she leered at them.

"Why do you all still live!? Bend to my diligence!" 

Subaru heard that kind of speech before from another loop and had a theory.

"Julius!"

"Yeah?"

"The true power of Sloth seems to be some kind of 'mind-transfer' ability. So every time he dies and goes into a new body, he transfers his thoughts and memories to his Fingers!"

"I see. So do you have a plan?"

Subaru nodded, making them realize what they had to do.

Subaru quickly summoned his Anti Magic Sword and led the Finger away from the Cult, while everyone else focused on taking down the rest of the Cult. Subaru was running to the forest when he noticed that the hands were catching up to him, Subaru swung his sword to cut the hands but he couldn't react in time to block or swiftly cut the hands. His attacks were to slow. 

Subaru couldn't react in time as he was punched in the chest and was sent flying into a tree near the woodline. As soon as Subaru collided with the tree he felt like all the wind was knocked right out of him as he was struggling to breath.

"Damn! If only I could attack and block faster than maybe...!"

"Then maybe Subaru I could attack and block a lot more quicker!"

As Subaru thought this, the hands were quickly approaching him. Subaru couldn't react in time as he knew for sure that he was screwed if he didn't think of something in time.

"I-If only...I had a NEW SWORD!"

As if answering Subaru's thoughts a new sword that had many similarities to the Demon Slayer Sword appeared. Subaru already knew at first glance that he somehow summoned his second Anti magic Sword...The Demon Dweller Sword.

Subaru quickly grabbed it and swung at the Unseen Hands, swiftly cutting them. Subaru quickly picked up one of the barrier stones and ran into the woods where all the mabeasts were. Knowing that the Finger was going to follow him in there.

Subaru was running through the forest, exhausted with a barrier stone in his hand. Behind him he could hear a gurgling sound, trees snapping and Unseen Hands searching for him. Earlier, the host was bitten in the neck by a Wolgarm and had begun to bleed out. She acted out of frustration and killed all the nearby Wolgarm as Subaru as Subaru escaped. Suddenly, he could no longer hear any of the earlier sounds. He ran back and found the female cultist lying there in a pool of her own blood, dead. 

Subaru ran back but turned one last time to see another Wolgarm descend upon the corpse and devour it. He turned away in disgust.

When Subaru got back, the first thing he did was find all the knights besides Julius and Felix injured and saw the new vessel of the Archbishop gleefully dancing around gleefully as the civilians around him wailed in death. This infuriated Subaru as he summoned both of his Anti Magic Swords in both hands and screamed out.

"SLOTH!"

Right when Subaru charged at the Archbishop, a voice called out from the distance.

"That's enough villain." 

Everyone looked at the direction of the voice and saw who it came from, it was Emilia. Emilia immediately froze the other Cultists around them and turned her attention to the new Sloth. 

"I cannot overlook what horrendous evil you have committed, villain!"  

"OH! OH! OHHHHH! My witch, the purpose and guiding force of my love! How wonderous! How spectacular!"

The host released several Unseen Hands at Emilia, but with Puck she easily dodged them. Subaru realized that Emilia had made snow float all around her, allowing her to see the Unseen Hands. Emilia unleashed a shower of ice spears on top of the Cultists, but he blocked it with his own Unseen Hands. The host tried to use his Unseen Hands to lift his body over to Emilia, but she fired ice spears to cut them away. The host then summoned a very large Unseen Hand and tried to slam it down at Emilia, she quickly jumped out of the way and summoned a gigantic spear and fired it at the Unseen Hand, destroying it.

The host smiled and cried after seeing this.

"Yes! Through you I shall go to the one that I love and they shall express their love to me!"

"That love doesn't exist, your crush is merely one sided!"

Puck and Emilia summoned another giant ice spear and fired it at the host, he used another countless Unseen Hands gave out and it crashed into it. The host was now trapped in the ice, Emilia walked over to him and placed her hand on the ice.

"Thank you for being defeated." 

"How diligent! Yes true diligence! HEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

They were his last words as the ice encased him, freezing him to death.

As Emilia turned to look at the villagers who all gave her indifferent looks as tears began to form in her eyes. As Subaru dissipated both of his swords he began to walk towards Emilia, only to feel something enter his body.  

Subaru knew for a fact he had to get away from everyone in the village so he ran, he just ran into the forest hoping to get away from everyone or anything. But he failed to notice that Julius and Felix followed him. 

But when they got there...they were to late Subaru's body was possessed by Petelguese. As Subaru was able to fight back for a certain amount of time he begged Julius and Felix to kill him though they hesitated Felix pressed his hand on Subaru's cheek, Subaru felt and immeasurable amount if pain as he stumbled to the ground and screamed in agony.

"Felix!"

"This is what he wants Julius!"

Julius was speechless, he honestly couldn't believe that he was about to do this. Julius raised his sword and swung it down on Subaru's neck. Thus ending Natsuki Subaru's life in that loop.

...

...

...

...

Subaru awoke in the middle of the meeting they had after the White Whale battle. He was disoriented and looked around, before he was snapped back to reality by a quick nibble on his ear by Felix. Though he freaked out a bit, he was calmed down by Rem feeling her warm touch.

"This time I have more information on Sloth, and I can summon my second Anti Magic Sword. Now I can use this to my advantage in order to succeed in this loop!" 

With new determination Subaru's new loop had finally begun.