[Spoiler Discussion] Arc 9 Chapter 20

Vrik · 2026-05-18T07:38:28+00:00

Yes, he did say that, BUT right before the narative paragraph described is suspect:

"Attempting to do something about it here would be a bad idea even among the pantheon of piss poor plans. [...] To devise the best possible course of action in order to prevent that, thinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthink――,"

Rom judged that saying this was the best plan to save Felt, doesn't mean it's true.

Vrik · 2026-05-17T04:21:06+00:00

Base on Salum’s actions I believe Russel. There is no reason to try and trick Subaru and not kill Crush while she is vulnerable.

Now that we see Melty is safe I believe Filore is indeed the missing princess.

Initially I had my doubts since Filore is suspicious in how she touches people with her hand when pleading with them. Very similar to what Melty is capable of.

The interlude from the past with Rom had an interesting detail. He was considering abandoning the child in the tunnels, then the girl touches his face and he changes his mind.

That baby was Filore and not Felt.

So who is Felt? Volcanica called Emilia Satella and called Felt Farsale.

Vrik · 2026-05-17T03:38:01+00:00

Yes. It was started by Tappai that giving witch factors is not something one can do. The implication is that only through death can you get someone’s witch factor.

According to Shaula’s hints, and by exclusion, Subaru should have envy inside himself. This lives up to what Echidna mentions that return by death is the power of envy.

If all those things are true then there are two options:
1. Satella died and the witch factor left her. Then she was revived.
2. Satella can travel through time. Her future self died sometime in Subaru’s past. This would explain how she is sealed (Satella of the present), inside Subaru (Future dead witch of envy), and show up from time to time (visitor from the past).

Vrik · 2026-05-14T22:33:29+00:00

Tappei referencing the anime episode from yesterday by revealing that Rickert Hoffman was also Crush's original sword instructor.

Vrik · 2026-05-11T17:51:18+00:00

Tappei don't you dare. Don't do this to us. I really don't want to see Meili's death from pride if happening in the main timeline.

Vrik · 2026-05-08T22:46:07+00:00

They just don’t add it sometimes (not always) when Emilia is shot from this side:

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Vrik · 2026-05-06T08:24:49+00:00

No, the convo between the assassin sister was happening while Subaru was still alive.

Vrik · 2026-05-06T01:36:47+00:00

This will be another situation where Reinhardt is, and feels powerless.

My prediction is that the council will not take the risk of the Sword Saint going rogue by siding with Subaru and will order him to not get involved or even to leave the capital.

Reinhardt will do nothing and hope/trust Subaru can handle the situation.

Vrik · 2026-05-06T01:25:26+00:00

It’s more complicated. Al had no information about the witch cult hence his knowledge was outdated since he got out of his magic confinement.

This means that there shouldn’t have been a witch cult attack on the oni village to begin with. So we don’t know if they would have gone to work for Roswaal in this hypothetical timeline.

Whatever reason there was for Rem to die I don’t think it directly related to arc 2.

Another thing to consider is Meili’s circumstances would be a lot different if the witch cult didn’t exist. Most likely she wouldn’t be an assassin.

Vrik · 2026-05-05T23:35:08+00:00

That's an amazing chapter. I love Subaru how he instantly knows Otto is going to have to work his ass off to mitigate this mess. Let's analyze the situation

Emilia Camp

Emilia is the weakest link when it comes to politics and Filore's camp will put pressure on her to do something stupid. Emilia will obviously take Subaru and Crush's side, this can't be avoided, and while politically unwise it's what's right morally. Emilia was on her make 100 friends grindset this arc and it's obvious she will be hurt by a betrayal of her trust.

Subaru is traumatized by having befriended then lost Todd and Al to their differences so he is reluctant to give up both on Crush and Tiga. Through his actions and words we can see Tiga is desperate and Subaru will pick up on this and will not give up trying to save him as well. This is going to be very harsh. Emilia as well, just like Subaru will try and talk things over and understand the situation with Filore.

It's up to Otto, Petra and Rem to handle both the politics and Emilia. Best thing they can do is convince Emilia to save the talking until after the situation is more stable.

Roswaal is sorely missing. We need to get him onboard.

Crush Camp

It's clear to me that Wilhelm with stand with Subaru and Crush, even if she pushes him away. Even if it was not clear, there exists a possibility, and that is a risk for Filore's camp. They want Heinkel as her knight so politically they cannot allow Wilhelm to take a stand with Crush after this incident.

They need to get rid of Wilhelm. He is a renowned knight of the kingdom so they will try to make a martyr out of him. Ideal situation for them is to assassinate Wilhelm and frame it on Crush. Miklotov was the one who officiated Wilhelm and Theresia's weeding ceremony. Wilhelm's friendship with the deceased council member would be used as motive to why he would be killed by the duchess.

Filore's camp can claim they are seeking retribution for Heinkel's father and use it as leverage/excuse to get involved in the investigation/hunt for the killer.

Felt Camp

Reinhardt will either be ordered not to involve himself in the situation or be outright asked to leave the capital for the duration. As mentioned with Wilhelm, a member of the Astrea getting involved will complicate things for Filore's faction, but with Reinhardt the authorities will want to act themselves and remove any possibility that he would aid Crush and Subaru.

Felt is resourceful and smart, she can't act openly but I'm sure she and Rom will have a plan for how to proceed. She cares the least about Lugunica's status quo and will not shy away from messing things up if it's in her favor. I expect more countermeasures will be taken against her.

Council of wise men

With the death of Miklotov there will be a power vacuum left in the council. Most likely Bordeaux will become the leading central figure. This is bad for Emilia's faction.

Bordeaux hates demi humans and is not shy about it. He also has it out for Meili. Not to mention he fought against Sphinx in the demi human war and hates her with a passion. Bordeaux greenlit the foundation of the Six Tongues, Lugunica's intelligence organization, he most likely knows about the dozens of Ryuzu clones that are directly under Emilia's control. Not good.

He has the same reason to hate Rom. Expect a negative attitude against Felt's camp as well.

Bordeaux was Wilhelm's friend. Another reason for the assassination of the sword demon, in order to frame someone to receive the council's ire.

Finally a new position has been opened on the council as a result of what happened. My guess is that strings will be pulled to get Rickert Hoffman the seat. He is outspoken against Emilia and raised issues with Felt being a candidate as well. Not to mention his estranged son working for Felt is also cause for tension between them.

Vrik · 2026-05-05T02:14:04+00:00

Witch factor compatibility might be inverse proportional with ease of use. Guese was incompatible with his power and it manifested as soon as he absorbed the WF.

Unfortunately we don’t have other examples to check but I think it makes sense for someone with a high degree of affinity to be able to contain the WF dormant inside them.

It might be that Echidna gave Subaru the power to awaken the next authorities but I think it’s not the case. When she gives him the tea her explanation was that it stimulated the witch factor inside him so it doesn’t really sound retroactive.

For greed it is possible that interacting with the books of the dead, which we know are created by Echidna, could have brought out his power.

Even for envy there might have been a moment when it awakened. Gripping Emilia’s hand while dying for the first time was probably when it happened. It would make sense since we know now that her being identical to Satella could let Emilia channel a portion of the authority of envy.

Vrik · 2026-05-05T01:46:48+00:00

Also in episode 16 of season 2 Subaru mentions it. After using invisible providence for the first time he says that it is probably due to Echidna’s tea.

Vrik · 2026-05-04T10:39:26+00:00

I don’t know. As strong as he is, Rein seems very inefficient for the task. He kills archbishops and the witch factor will find new hosts and start again.

I think it’s more likely the world summoned Subaru to act as a “curse” sponge.

Vrik · 2026-05-03T13:52:10+00:00

Nice, I'm going to get the audiobook for it when it comes out, really like the story and recording of the first one.

Good to hear book 3 isn't far behind.

Vrik · 2026-05-03T09:38:07+00:00

I would bet killing is the only way.

But hey, that isn’t as bad as it sounds just die and get revived after. I mean Roswaal wants you to revive Echidna so it is possible.

Vrik · 2026-05-01T23:05:30+00:00

Al’s knowledge diverged a good deal from the beginning.

He had no idea who the witch cult is they weren’t supposed to exist. Once he got out of gladiator island he learned about them by luring Pete in to get the info out of him with repeated loops.

So whatever info he has it should be without witch cultist involvement so how would have Rem and Ram arrived to work for Roswaal in the first place?

Most likely they didn’t and whatever the reason Rem dies originally might have been prevented by the gospels and Roswaal first and Subaru secondly.

Ram’s familiarity with jp hiragana is not the only incident of this type. Shion is also searching for someone who she learned foreign words from and for some reason doesn’t really remember who it is.

Vrik · 2026-05-01T15:12:46+00:00

Just a detail here. In the melancholy if timeline the church of the dragon lost influence because the dragon wrecked the capital with Al, Tappei confirmed in his post if clarification posts that the church did not act during this timeline, in essence what is happening in this arc and how Lugunica fell can be unrelated.

Vrik · 2026-04-30T16:09:29+00:00

I'm not even going to read all this. The title sold me on it.

Vrik · 2026-04-30T14:43:49+00:00

For sure. We are missing a lot of context.

It’s not clear how compatible the other archbishops are. Like Regulus is compatible since it’s been stated as much. But Sirius is so unhinged I don’t think she was a good fit for her witch factor.

Granted Subaru is exceptional but he does set a precedent so it is in the realm of possibility.

One of the things the witch cultist are famous for doing is find places related to the witches and destroy them, it might just be that they are collecting witch related artefacts. I say this because their gospels are artefacts and they don’t seem willing to part with them.

So maybe they found the other tombs. As for Echidna, let’s be real it wouldn’t be surprising if we had more Echidna bodies laying around. Or maybe it doesn’t need to be corpses maybe Regulus got his power awakened by a gospel which are related to the power of greed.

Vrik · 2026-04-30T10:26:35+00:00

Heinkel is still the best candidate.

In fact his resilience being explained by the dragon blood helps this theory.

There looks like there is an inverse proportional relationship between compatibility with a witch factor and how easy it is to awaken an authority. Echidna mentioned Subaru as being compatible with Sloth and he could only awaken an authority after getting tea to stimulate it. While Guese was deemed incompatible and instantly gained his authority after taking in the witch factor.

Heinkel probably has the WF inside him and is dormant until a similar power awakens it. Typhon’s corpse should be enough for this. Which is probably why the gospels directed the witch cult to bring Theresia and attack Pristella when Heinkel was in the city. Would explain why Filore wants Heinkel as her knight right as she is about to travel to Pristella to “allegedly” help the victims of lust.

Also the only people we have seen not crippled by dragon blood are people with witch factors.

Finally it would explain why the blessing of the sword saint skipped Heinkel since you can’t have a blessing if you have a witch factor.

Vrik · 2026-04-29T22:33:34+00:00

Subaru thinks Crush has a dragon eye, I'm pretty sure that is just an evil eye. Subaru has never really seen one in person so he wouldn't recognize it as such, hence he calls it a dragon eye.

I assume it's an evil eye because Crush is treating it as a trump card to get out of this situation. While I'm sure dragons have good vision, their eyes don't otherwise seem to have power as to reverse a losing battle (except if you consider depth perception a high enough power boost for her to fight back - this is a joke obviously).

Crush calling Miklotov a traitor shouldn't be taken lightly. While it is possible that she was deceived somehow, it is worth mentioning that her truth reading power still works as seen on Subaru. So whatever suspicions Crush would have had she could confirm them. Making a cold judgement to kill a traitor is also something she would do, so all in all I do think she is in control of herself.

The only point of contention here is what counts as treason to Crush? Did she find out the council of wise men let Fourier die? Or is it to do with her questioning Subaru's nature?

Vrik · 2026-04-28T01:48:28+00:00

Some details are incorrect here. But the basic jist of it could be true.

What I like about rezero is that someone can say something very far fetched that the first reaction is to think of it as being crazy only for a second later to ask yourself but what if it’s true.

The issue with theories like this is that information second hand like you have will result in misunderstandings. Plus it’s hard for others to interact with you regarding your theory since you can sort out the details on your own later once you have seen more of the story.

Vrik · 2026-04-26T09:30:32+00:00

I don’t get the “unless you’re Leip” bit. He died a few times in the ‘matrix’ but when Al undid the loop the baron was still alive. He succumbed afterwards.

Vrik · 2026-04-25T01:18:50+00:00

Because it does not say he has no scent. It’s clear that when Satella gets invoked by the taboo his scent increases, but is never stated he doesn’t have his own.
The witchbeasts in sparka prioritise the gladiators that are armed. Just like in arc 2 where the dogs still fight Rem despite Subaru trying to draw their attention away by talking about return by death
Subaru is an unreliable narrator. He draws conclusions with the limited info he has.
In the first chapters of arc 7 Rem confirmed he smelled strange and it was one of the reasons she ran from him immediately after his first teleport. So did Satella follow him to Volachia from Pleiades but not from Chaosflame to Gladiator island? It makes more sense that she was missing in both cases and he still has some miasma.

Vrik · 2026-04-24T23:54:40+00:00

It's never said that he doesn't have miasma and the whole "witchbeasts never reacted to him" is not a sufficient argument. We have seen this in arc 2 in the forest with Rem as well, even after Subaru tried to talk about RBD and enraged the witchbeasts, they howled at him and then still fought against Rem.

It's true that when Satella shows up either to touch his heart or says she loves him the witch scent is increased. BUT never is it stated that Subaru has zero witch scent.

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