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"Let go of me, damn wildcat!"
Link's shout bounced off the rotten boards of the alley, mixing with Rom's deep laughter and Subaru's ragged breathing, as the boy was still trying to process the absurd scene before his eyes. Felt had her teeth sunk into Link's hand with a fierce expression, more like a street animal defending its food than a simple thief annoyed by a pat on the head. Link, for his part, kept his arm extended and his face twisted, not so much from real pain—because his body, disturbingly, barely registered the bite—but from the indignation of having been attacked after a gesture that, in his mind, had been almost fraternal.
"I warned you not to touch me!" Felt growled, finally letting him go and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, as if she had bitten something unpleasant.
"I patted your head, I didn't sell you to a circus!" Link shot back, shaking his hand in the air while checking the teeth marks. There was pressure, saliva, a slight redness, but not a single drop of blood. That made his eyes cloud over for an instant. One more sign. One more reminder that his body was no longer the same. He decided to ignore it before the thought dragged his head into another pit of panic. "In my defense, the scene called for it. I got here before Subaru, gave you sweets, negotiated, and we're not dead yet. That deserves at least a victorious pat."
"I'm not your pet!"
"With that bite, you could've fooled me."
"Want me to try your nose?"
"No, thanks. I've already got enough facial trauma for one day."
Subaru slowly raised one hand, like a student trying to intervene in the middle of a family argument without knowing if it would cost him his life.
"I'm glad to see the atmosphere is... lively. Very lively. Almost too lively for a situation where, as I recall, an assassin could show up at any moment and turn us into interior decoration."
The phrase snuffed out Rom's laughter as if someone had slammed a door shut.
Felt stopped baring her teeth. Link went still as well.
The wind passing through the slums carried the smell of damp wood, old garbage, and distant smoke. The Loot House rose behind Rom like an enormous sleeping animal, with its old walls and crooked door, pretending to be a refuge when Link knew it could become a blood trap in a matter of seconds. The memory of the inside returned with too much clarity: Rom's arm separated from his body, Felt screaming, Elsa walking over the blood as if strolling through a garden.
Subaru looked at Link. There was no mockery in his eyes now. Nor his usual theatricality. Only urgency.
"We have to go inside."
Link looked at him as if he had just suggested they voluntarily climb into a crocodile's mouth.
"No."
"Link..."
"Don't look at me with that suffering-protagonist face. I already told you no. This house is cursed by pure common sense. If we wait outside, we have space, we have the van, we have an escape route, and we don't have to fight inside a rotten wooden box where that woman can bounce from wall to wall like a cockroach with knives."
Felt narrowed her eyes.
"Cockroach with knives?"
"It's not a perfect metaphor, but it gets the idea across."
Rom crossed his arms, his enormous silhouette covering part of the entrance. The old giant was not smiling. His eyes moved between Subaru, Link, and Felt with the caution of someone who had spent too long living among criminals not to recognize a sincere warning when he heard one, even if it came wrapped in madness.
"The weird boy has a point," Rom admitted. "If that woman is coming for the insignia and she's as dangerous as you say, fighting outside gives us more space."
"But negotiating outside also exposes us," Subaru said, gripping the plastic store bag against his side. "Elsa is coming here because she expected Felt to deliver the insignia in this place. If she doesn't find anyone inside, she could change her route, search from another direction, or act before we're ready. Also, if No-Satella arrives and sees all of this from outside, the situation will spiral out of control even faster."
Link frowned.
"No-Satella."
Subaru tensed slightly.
"The silver-haired girl. The owner of the insignia. It's complicated."
"Everything here is complicated. Even the rats must have family trees."
Felt stomped the ground.
"Okay, hold on. How many people are coming for this insignia? First Elsa, then this other buyer with the face of someone who slept inside a carriage, now a silver-haired girl. What did I steal, a jewel or a direct ticket to getting myself killed?"
Subaru and Link fell silent.
Rom sighed heavily.
"Felt, when something pays too well, it's usually because it has hidden teeth."
"I know that," she replied, annoyed. "But usually the teeth don't come in groups."
Subaru took a step toward her, speaking carefully, as if every word could break the little trust they had built.
"Felt, listen to me. I'm not asking you to trust me because I'm a good person, because technically, to you, I'm a suspicious stranger with a weird object. I'm also not asking you to trust Link, because he looks like he crawled out of a bad day involving explosives and poor emotional hygiene."
"Hey," Link protested.
"But we both know Elsa is coming. Link saw her. I saw her. Rom may not have seen her yet, but he knows enough about the underworld to understand that this smells bad. If we stay separated, she wins. If we keep everything scattered, she chooses when to attack. The only way to keep anything resembling control is to make the situation happen where we expect it to happen, with us prepared."
Link let out a dry laugh.
"That sounds really nice until you remember that 'where we expect it to happen' is the same place where we got turned into human sushi."
Subaru did not look away.
"I know."
That simple answer was worse than any speech. Link had expected a ridiculous justification, a heroic phrase, some clownish nonsense. Instead, Subaru simply admitted it. He knew. He knew how horrible it was to go back inside. He knew what had happened there. He knew what the wood would smell like when fear began warming the blood in their memories. And still, he was willing to do it.
Link clenched his jaw.
He hated that.
He hated that Subaru's stupidity had the shape of courage.
Felt looked at Rom, searching his face for an answer she did not want to hear. The old giant looked down at her with a strange, almost paternal seriousness and scratched his chin.
"The Loot House is my ground. I know every corner, every false door, every loose board, and every place where a knife can be hidden. If we have to wait for someone dangerous, I don't like doing it out in the street like scared dogs."
"Old man..." Felt murmured.
"But I also don't like giving an assassin the advantage for free. So we go in, yes, but not like fools. We prepare exits. None of that sitting around a table pretending this is a normal business afternoon."
Subaru exhaled with relief, but Link raised a hand.
"There's still one thing missing."
Everyone looked at him.
Link slowly turned toward the van. The black beast was parked at one side of the street, far too large and modern for that rotten wooden district. The rear door was closed. Behind it, in the trunk, was the box he had been trying to ignore since he arrived in that world. Not the food box, not his bags, not the sweets. The other one.
The wooden box that, in his world, had been a sentence.
The same one that scraped in the back of the van during the trip toward the jungle. The same one he had been threatened over. The same one that had turned his boss into a monster before his eyes. The same one that contained enough reasons for any decent person to call the police and walk away.
But there were no police here.
There was no useful law.
Only an assassin who moved too quickly to be human.
Link swallowed.
"If we're going in, we're not going in unarmed."
Subaru followed his gaze toward the van.
"You mean...?"
"Yes."
"The box?"
"Yes."
"The weapons box."
Felt went motionless.
Rom raised an eyebrow.
"Weapons?"
Subaru brought a hand to his face.
"Of course. Of course there was a box of weapons. Because a van from another world wasn't enough. Of course it also had to come with weapons. I wonder if you've got a foldable dragon in the back seat or a bomb that can destroy the kingdom."
"Don't give ideas," Link said.
Felt took one step closer to the van, her red eyes shining with a dangerous mix of interest and distrust.
"What kind of weapons?"
Link did not answer immediately. He walked toward the back of the vehicle with the sensation of dragging an invisible chain. Each step felt heavy. He remembered his mother's face in the Christmas photo. He remembered the message he had sent her when he thought he was going to die as a mule for criminals. He remembered his boss's voice laughing on the other end of the phone. Everything in that box was stained for him, not with visible blood, but with the kind of filth that never washed off.
He opened the trunk.
The inside smelled of wood, metal, oil, and dust. The box was wedged between battered bags and luggage remnants. It was large, solid, closed with metal locks. Link stared at it for a few seconds, his throat dry.
"I don't like this," he murmured.
Subaru, who had approached more cautiously, spoke in a low voice.
"We don't have to use them if you don't want to."
Link let out a bitter laugh.
"Yeah, sure. And Elsa will wait politely while we discuss our moral limits."
Rom leaned in to look at the box. Felt tried to get closer, but Link shot her a look.
"Don't put your hand in there."
"I'm not a child."
"You're a thief with quick fingers. Worse."
"Want another bite?"
"After we don't get killed, schedule an appointment."
Link grabbed the metal locks. They were tough, designed to withstand blows, transport, and curious hands. In his world, he would have needed tools, time, maybe to cut the metal. Here, with that strange body, he only needed to close his fingers and pull.
The first lock screeched.
It did not open.
It deformed.
The metal yielded with an unpleasant groan, twisting between his hands. Link froze for a fraction of a second, feeling the abnormal strength run through his arms like something alien, something using his body from within. He squeezed harder. The lock snapped. The second came off with a dry crack. The third sprang onto the floor of the trunk and rolled until it hit a bag of sweets.
Felt opened her mouth.
Rom whistled, impressed.
Subaru said nothing, but his eyes fixed on Link's hands with a mixture of fear and calculation.
Link lifted the lid of the box.
And lost his breath.
Black metal. Magazines. Boxes of ammunition. Familiar and terrible shapes arranged with practical precision. They were not fantasy tools, they were not swords with heroic names, they were not magic staves or ancient relics. They were modern weapons, cold, direct, born from a humanity that had learned to kill at a distance with industrial efficiency. Seeing them there, inside the trunk of a van parked in front of a loot warehouse in Lugnica, brought him a slow nausea.
"Holy shit..." Subaru whispered.
Felt approached with wide eyes.
"That's metal? All of those are weapons?"
"Don't touch," Link said, harsher than necessary.
She pulled her hand back instantly, not out of obedience, but because his tone showed her something non-negotiable.
Rom observed the contents with a gravity he had not had before.
"They're not swords."
"No," Link replied.
"They don't look like crossbows either."
"No."
"Then what do they do?"
Link swallowed. He did not want to explain. He did not want to turn this into a lesson. He did not want to see curiosity in anyone's eyes. It was horrible enough to know those things worked.
"They make holes," he finally said. "From far away."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Subaru, who understood enough, lowered his gaze. Felt, who did not fully understand, looked at the weapons again with more respect than fascination. Rom pressed his lips together.
Link put his hands into the box. He chose a shotgun because it was simple enough for his fear: heavy, brutal, hard to ignore. He held it carefully, feeling the weight like an accusation. Then he took out two nine-millimeter pistols and placed them on the lower edge of the trunk. After that, he grabbed a small group of flashbangs, recognizing them by their shape, though he avoided thinking too much about how they worked. He was not going to give technical explanations. He was not going to turn Felt into a soldier or Subaru into a gunman. They only needed a distraction if Elsa got too close.
"These," he said, pointing at the pistols, "are a last resort. Don't play with them. Don't pull them out to look tough. Don't point at anyone you aren't willing to see fall. Don't shoot if someone is in front of you. Don't try to be heroes."
Subaru raised a trembling hand.
"As a modern Japanese person, I must declare that this seems extremely illegal in several ways, but as a person who has already been opened up by Elsa, I must also admit that my scale of priorities is in pieces."
Link handed him one of the pistols.
Subaru held it as if it were a sleeping snake.
"It's heavier than I expected."
"Because it's real."
Subaru went pale.
"Thanks, that doesn't help."
Felt looked at the second pistol, then at Link.
"Are you going to give me one?"
"I don't want to."
"But you're going to."
"Yes."
"Good."
Link stared at her before handing it over. His fingers brushed Felt's, and for once, she did not try to bite him. The girl held the weapon with both hands, looking at it with feline attention, not like someone fascinated by the object, but like someone evaluating any new tool through one simple question: does it keep me alive or get me killed faster?
"It doesn't weigh like a knife," she said.
"It's not a knife."
"I can see that."
"Then don't use it like one."
Felt looked at him sideways.
"I'm not stupid."
"You're impulsive."
"You're ugly."
"Mature."
Rom extended a hand.
"And for me?"
Link looked at him, then at the size of the old man's hands. A pistol would look almost like a toy in them.
"You have your club."
"My club doesn't make holes from far away."
"Your club makes emotional holes in walls."
Rom let out a laugh, though his gaze remained serious.
"I'll settle for now."
Link put the flashbangs into a small bag and clumsily slung the shotgun over himself. He did not feel powerful. He did not feel prepared. He felt like an idiot trying to cover the enormous hole of his terror with weapons. Elsa had dodged bullets before. He knew that. Part of him screamed that none of it would work. But another part, the stubborn one, the one that had turned the van around instead of running away, whispered that maybe one second was enough. One second for Felt to run. One second for Emilia to live. One second so Subaru would not wake up screaming again.
He closed the trunk.
"Now," he said. "We go in."
The Loot House welcomed them with its usual smell of old wood, spilled liquor, and merchandise accumulated without affection. Link crossed the threshold with the shotgun held against his chest and had to force himself not to look at the floor for blood that was not there anymore. The interior was darker than he remembered, with the counter at the back, shelves loaded with stolen objects, stacked boxes, barrels, cheap weapons, fabrics, ownerless jewelry, and small wooden signs tied to some goods. Everything looked the same and, precisely because of that, worse. The normality of the place was a mockery. That floor did not yet know it could end up covered in red.
Rom closed the door behind them and placed a light bar across it, not to prevent entry, but to make noise if someone tried to burst in. Felt moved inside with a confidence that said she had known the place since childhood. Subaru stayed near Link, looking everywhere with his nerves on edge. The pistol Link had given him was tucked away awkwardly, as if Subaru did not want to feel it but also could not let it go.
"Don't pull it out unless there's no other option," Link told him quietly.
"I thought you already said that."
"I'm repeating it because you look like the kind of person who makes bad decisions with dramatic music in the background."
"That was unnecessarily specific."
"And still accurate."
Felt climbed onto a chair and placed the insignia on the table with calculated slowness. The red jewel shone under the dim interior light, embedded in the design of the winged dragon. Even Link, who knew nothing about jewelry in this world, understood that it was not a simple trinket. There was something solemn about that object, something that did not fit in the pocket of a thief or on a dirty table in the slums.
Subaru looked at it with an expression Link already knew: relief, guilt, and determination mixed together in an exhausting way.
"That's it," Subaru said.
"Yeah, that's it," Felt replied, resting her elbows on the table. "And now that everyone is as tense as if their throats were about to be cut, are we going to talk about money or are you just going to keep staring at it like it's going to sing?"
Rom positioned himself behind the counter and took out a bottle of liquor. Link turned toward him with almost offensive speed.
"Don't even think about bringing that near me."
Rom raised both hands.
"It was for me."
"It better be."
Subaru cleared his throat. The scene, with modern weapons hidden under clothes from another world and a shotgun held by a terrified Latino, tried to get back on track toward an almost normal negotiation. It was ridiculous.
"Felt," Subaru began, recovering his desperate salesman tone, "I would like to buy that insignia."
"I already heard that from the weird boy," Felt replied, pointing at Link with her chin. "He offered sweets, strange things, and an indeterminate amount of valuable objects. You're late, so I hope your offer is better."
"My offer has historical, technological, and emotional value," Subaru declared, taking out his phone with a theatrical gesture. "Behold the power of an object capable of freezing instants of time and preserving them inside its rectangular body."
Link closed his eyes.
"Please don't say it like that."
Felt tilted her head.
"What does that mean?"
"That it's a Metia," Subaru said, ignoring Link's stare. "An extraordinary tool that cuts out a piece of time and stores a person's image."
Rom approached with interest.
"That sounds similar to what the other weird boy said about his weapons, but less bloody."
"Much less bloody," Subaru said quickly. "This is a peaceful tool. Look."
Subaru activated the camera and, after some maneuvers that looked like magic in Rom and Felt's eyes, took a photo. The flash made Felt tense and almost made Link raise the shotgun by reflex. Felt's image appeared on the screen, with her red eyes wide, a half-hidden cookie in her hand, and an expression of "I'm going to bite you" perfectly captured.
Felt leaned forward.
"That's me."
"Exactly."
"Did you trap me inside?"
"Not exactly. It's a copy of light."
Felt narrowed her eyes.
"Sounds like a tiny kidnapping."
"It's not a tiny kidnapping," Subaru said. "It's photography."
"That sounds worse."
Link placed a hand on the table.
"It's an image. It doesn't steal souls. It doesn't imprison people. In my world, it's used to remember birthdays, food, pets, and bad decisions."
Subaru nodded vigorously.
"Exactly! Besides, if it could steal souls, I probably would've used it against Elsa and wouldn't be here trying to negotiate with a girl who threatens to bite people."
"I heard that," Felt said.
"That was the intention."
Rom took the phone carefully, observing it from several angles. The light of the screen reflected in his gray eyes. His old criminal merchant expression turned serious, almost professional.
"I've never seen a Metia like this. The material is strange. The image appears without paint or carved crystal. Although I don't know how long it will last, for a curious noble or a collector of rarities, this would be worth a lot."
Felt slowly smiled.
"More than the insignia?"
Rom looked at the jewel, then the phone, then Subaru.
"If you find the right buyer, yes. Much more."
Subaru struck such an absurd victory pose that Link felt the urge to hit him by reflex.
"Ha! Subaru Natsuki, interdimensional merchant, achieves a crushing victory thanks to the power of modern technology!"
"You're celebrating too soon," Felt said.
Subaru froze.
"Why does everyone in this world wait until I'm happy to trample me?"
Felt rested her cheek on one hand.
"Because you make funny faces. Besides, I already had a buyer. Elsa offered a very nice amount. If your Metia is worth more, that means I can squeeze more out of either of you. I'm not a charity organization."
"You're not even an organization," Link said. "You're a minor with a knife and trust issues."
"And you're an adult handing out candy to girls in alleys."
Subaru made a choked sound.
Rom covered his mouth with his fist.
Link went completely still.
"I withdraw my comment on the advice of my imaginary lawyer."
Felt smiled, satisfied at having won that exchange.
The negotiation continued for a while, more or less along the path Subaru expected, though with constant detours caused by Link every time Felt tried to squeeze the price too much. Subaru wanted to buy the insignia with his phone. Felt wanted to take advantage of having several possible buyers. Rom tried to set approximate values while drinking small sips of liquor that Link watched as if they were magical poison. The fact that everyone was armed did not make the conversation calmer. On the contrary, every time a chair creaked, Subaru looked toward the door, Felt moved her hand near the pistol she had hidden under her clothes, and Link adjusted the shotgun against his chest.
"I'm going to say it clearly," Felt finally said. "Your Metia is good. The weird boy's strange things too. But Elsa can still improve the offer. And if she can improve it, I want to hear it."
"That is exactly what we're trying to avoid," Link said.
"You're trying to avoid her because you're scared."
"Yes."
Felt blinked, as if she still did not know what to do when Link admitted his fear without shame.
"Then you're not a good negotiator."
"I'm an excellent negotiator. I'm negotiating with my survival instinct so I don't jump out that window."
Subaru leaned toward her.
"Felt, if Elsa arrives, this isn't just about money. That woman isn't going to accept losing. If she sees the insignia returning to its owner or the sale slipping away, she's going to attack."
"You already said that."
"And I'm going to keep saying it until you believe it."
Felt clicked her tongue.
"You two are annoying."
"But we're alive," Subaru said.
Link looked at the floor.
"For now."
Then the door sounded.
It was not a violent knock. It was a push from outside, the creak of wood opening cautiously. Everyone reacted at once. Rom grabbed his club. Felt jumped off the chair. Subaru stood so fast he hit the table with his knee. Link raised the shotgun and aimed at the entrance before reason caught up to his hands.
The air seemed to stop.
Elsa was not in the doorway.
It was a young woman with silver hair.
The light from outside surrounded her like a soft edge, making the white of her clothes and the shine of her hair seem almost unreal in the middle of that dirty warehouse. She had violet eyes, a beautiful face, and a presence that did not fit at all with the slums. On her shoulder, half hidden among her hair, there was a small gray cat observing the scene with intelligent eyes.
Link did not think.
His body remembered first.
Beautiful woman. Unexpected appearance. Warehouse. Death.
The mouth of the shotgun ended up aimed directly at her.
"Don't move!" Link roared, his voice charged more with panic than authority.
The girl went completely still, her eyes wide with surprise. The little gray cat raised his head, and the air around them seemed to tense with a pressure that made the hair on Link's nape stand up.
"Link, lower that!" Subaru shouted, immediately placing himself between the shotgun and the newcomer.
"Move!"
"No! She's not Elsa!"
"How do you know?!"
"Because Elsa doesn't have silver hair or a floating cat that can turn us into shaved ice if we keep pointing at her!"
The gray cat twitched an ear.
"Well, I wouldn't have put it exactly like that, but I appreciate the recognition."
Link blinked.
"The cat talks."
"That's Puck!" Subaru said, still with both hands raised. "He's the spirit of the girl with the insignia. The owner. She's not an enemy. Repeat: she's not an enemy."
Link breathed hard, but the shotgun began to lower slowly. His finger moved away from the trigger as if he had just awakened from a trance. He looked at the silver-haired girl, then at Subaru, then at the cat. His heart was pounding violently in his chest. For one second, he had been a breath away from shooting someone who understood nothing, only because fear had taken control.
"Shit..." he whispered, lowering the weapon completely. "Shit. Sorry."
The young woman looked at him cautiously, not exactly with fear, but with a mixture of confusion and reproach.
"I don't know what that thing you're holding is, but pointing it at someone the moment they enter doesn't seem like a very proper way to greet someone."
"It's not a proper way to do anything," Link admitted.
Felt took advantage of the moment to hide the insignia against her chest.
"You're late, Miss Owner."
The young woman's gaze immediately turned toward her.
"You..."
The atmosphere changed. Not with the murderous terror Elsa brought, but with a different kind of tension, more personal. Emilia—though Link still did not have that name—took one step inside the Loot House, and Puck floated beside her with that calmness of a small creature that could be much more dangerous than it seemed. Subaru relaxed a little, but not completely. Rom kept his club nearby. Link did not aim again, though he held the shotgun with both hands.
"Give me back my insignia," the silver-haired girl said, with a seriousness that contrasted with the softness of her voice. "It is very important to me."
Felt stuck out her tongue.
"If it's that important, you shouldn't have let me steal it."
Subaru brought both hands to his head.
"Felt, please, we're trying to reduce the probability of murder, not increase it with inflammatory comments."
"Don't tell me what to do."
The silver-haired girl looked at Subaru, and her expression softened slightly upon recognizing him as someone she did not know and, at the same time, seemed far too familiar with her.
"You are..."
Subaru smiled nervously.
"Subaru Natsuki. We met briefly under circumstances you technically don't remember, but that sounds very suspicious, so let's leave it at the fact that I'm someone who wants to return what belongs to you."
"That doesn't sound less suspicious," Puck said.
"Thanks, Puck. I needed moral support, not surgical precision."
Link approached Subaru and murmured:
"She doesn't know you?"
"Not in this loop."
"I hate this shit."
"Welcome to the club."
The conversation tried to follow a reasonable course, though no one seemed to agree on what "reasonable" meant. The silver-haired girl claimed the insignia because it was hers. Felt refused to return it for free because, to her, stealing was work and work had to be paid. Subaru tried to mediate by offering his phone as payment to Felt and returning the insignia to its owner as the final result. Rom evaluated, Puck observed, and Link stayed near the wall with the shotgun lowered but ready, feeling that every second inside that warehouse brought them closer to the moment when the air would turn into a blade.
"So," Felt said, holding the insignia between two fingers, "if the weird-clothes boy pays, I give it to him. If the lady wants to complain, she can complain to him afterward. That solves everything."
"It doesn't solve the fact that you stole from me," the young woman said.
"Details."
"They are not details."
"To me they are."
Subaru placed himself between them with a nervous smile.
"Okay, okay, let's try to remember that everyone here wants to avoid violence. Felt gets money. The owner gets the insignia back. Rom doesn't die. Link doesn't shoot by reflex. Puck doesn't turn anyone into an ice statue. Everyone's happy."
Link felt it before he saw it.
It was not magic. It was not a heroic premonition. It was pure trauma. An almost imperceptible change in the room's pressure, a movement too soft behind the conversation, the silence of a predator entering attack range. The memory of his own death reacted before his mind. The muscles in his arms tensed. His eyes moved toward the blind spot behind the silver-haired girl.
A black shadow.
A smile.
Steel.
"DOWN!" Subaru roared at the same time.
In the canon of that instant, Puck was supposed to save her.
In this version, the roar of the shotgun joined the miracle.
Link fired without hesitation.
The blast shattered the conversation and turned the air inside the Loot House into a physical blow. The wood near the entrance exploded into splinters. The silver-haired girl was pushed forward by Subaru's desperate reaction, while a bluish-white magic circle bloomed behind her like an ice moon born at the last second. Elsa's curved blade struck that spiritual defense with a sharp shriek, deflected just enough not to split her target's body open.
At the same time, the shotgun blast crossed the space where Elsa had been half a heartbeat earlier.
It did not tear her apart.
Elsa moved.
Her body bent with inhuman grace, retreating among splinters and smoke, letting part of the shot rip black fabric from her coat and scar the wood behind her. Some fragments grazed her side; not enough to knock her down, but enough for a red line to appear across her pale skin.
For the first time since Link had known her, Elsa blinked with genuine interest.
Then she smiled.
"What a wonderful sound."
The smoke from the gunshot mixed with the dust in the place. Subaru was on the floor, holding the silver-haired girl by the shoulders. Puck floated in front of them with narrowed eyes, his playful tone gone. Felt had the pistol in her hand but had not fired, her eyes wide as she understood that every warning had been true. Rom raised his club, instinctively placing himself between Elsa and Felt.
Link kept the shotgun aimed, his shoulder aching from the recoil, his breathing broken, and his eyes fixed on the woman in black.
Puck rose a little higher, and the air began to cool.
"Don't underestimate a spirit arts user... or her strange companions," the small spirit said, though his gaze remained fixed on Elsa.
The silver-haired girl, still on the floor, looked up at the assassin with a mixture of confusion and indignation.
"Who are you? Why did you do that?"
Elsa tilted her head, as if the question were charming.
"Because if the owner gets the insignia back, the negotiation stops being fun."
Felt gripped the insignia so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"Elsa... what does this mean? You were only supposed to buy it!"
"That was the initial plan," Elsa replied with terrifying calm. "But plans change. If I cannot buy it cleanly, I can collect it after everyone is dead. It is simpler than it seems."
Rom growled, taking one step forward.
"So the weird boy was telling the truth."
"I wish I'd been lying," Link murmured.
Subaru slowly got to his feet. His face was pale, but his eyes did not leave Elsa.
"Everyone back," he said, with a voice that trembled less than Link expected.
Link kept the shotgun steady.
The shot had not changed fate.
It had only declared war early.
Elsa opened her arms with theatrical elegance, her kukris reflecting the faint light of the warehouse. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, her eyes shining with sick pleasure, and the line of blood on her side seemed to have increased her excitement instead of worrying her.
"A thief, a giant, a half-elf with a spirit, two ordinary people with impossible tools..." she listed in a soft voice. "What a beautiful night."
Link felt his finger tense again on the trigger.
"Felt," he said without looking at her. "When I tell you to run, you run."
"Don't give me orders."
"Then consider it a suggestion with a disembowelment risk."
Subaru took a step beside him, pulling out the pistol Link had given him, though he held it with hands that were far too tense.
"Link."
"What?"
"Don't shoot if I'm in front."
"Then don't stand in front."
"I'll try to remember that while a supernatural assassin is trying to open my stomach."
"Good boy."
Elsa moved.
And the Loot House became a field of death once again.