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Link couldn't sleep.
He tried for longer than he was willing to admit. He lay on his side, then on his back, then on the other side. He pulled the covers up to his chest, then threw the blanket off because the room felt too warm, then covered himself again because his skin went cold for some reason that had nothing to do with temperature. He closed his eyes and counted breaths. He tried to remember the day's work, the weight of the sacks, the route to the village, the voices of the children, the texture of the handles on the new tools, and the taste of mint with chocolate. Nothing worked. His body was exhausted, but his mind paced inside his skull like a caged animal, crashing into memories, smells, and sensations that refused to stay still.
The room was comfortable. Too comfortable, perhaps. Having a room of his own in a huge mansion should have been an absurd privilege, especially for someone who, not so long ago, had been sleeping on a sofa, sharing space with Subaru and waking up with the certainty that this world could tear his life away on any corner. The bed was soft, the clothes were clean, there was a pitcher of water on a small table, a chair by the window, and a wardrobe with work clothes folded with a precision that undoubtedly came from Rem or Ram. Nothing was out of place. That was exactly what bothered him. The room seemed made for rest, but not for someone who had died too many times without fully understanding why.
He slowly sat up, resting his elbows on his knees.
The darkness of the room was not absolute, because the moon filtered in through the curtains in a pale line. Even so, the shadows occupied almost everything. The furniture became black masses, the edges of the walls seemed farther away than they should have, and the silence of the mansion had a different quality from the daytime. In the morning, the hallways were full of footsteps, orders, cutlery, doors, and Subaru's voice receiving surgical attacks from Ram. At night, the Roswaal mansion seemed to hold its breath.
Link ran a hand over his face.
"Great," he muttered. "Now I can't even sleep."
He whispered the phrase in Spanish without thinking. There was no one there to hear him, and that made it more honest. He was not scared in a direct way. He had not seen anything move in a corner or heard a strange noise. It was worse. It was the feeling that sleep was avoiding him because something, somewhere, was still unresolved. A part of him remembered far too well what happened when he closed his eyes without understanding the rules of the world: he woke up in another place, at another time, with his body intact and his soul full of someone else's blood.
He got out of bed carefully and searched for his boots by touch. He did not want to wake anyone. He also did not want to leave as if he were running away from his own room, though deep down, it was rather close to that. He put a simple shirt over his sleepwear, made sure the seams on the back were not too tight—in case his body decided to do some red stupidity without permission—and moved toward the door.
When he opened it, the hallway received him with a deeper darkness.
The mansion was not made for people who did not know its routes. During the day, it was already easy to get lost; at night, every stretch seemed to repeat itself with slight variations, as if the building amused itself by shuffling doors while everyone slept. Link advanced only a few steps and stopped. He could barely see anything. Moonlight entered through some windows, but it was not enough to illuminate the floor properly. In his world, he would have pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and mocked himself for feeling intimidated by an expensive hallway. The thought came to him automatically.
Then he remembered he did not have his phone.
Not since he woke up in the mansion.
He did not know when he had lost it. Between the Loot Warehouse, the fight against Elsa, his body erupting, Reinhard, the transfer, Beatrice draining him, and the following days of work, he had not had the head to check all his belongings. Subaru still kept some of his things from before, though they were becoming less and less useful in this world. Link, on the other hand, had arrived with a truck, weapons, strange objects, and far too many questions. Now he was in a mansion with borrowed clothes, gardening tools, and a body that offered horrible solutions to simple problems.
"A lamp," he whispered. "I need a lamp."
He looked down both sides of the hallway. There were wall sconces, but some were unlit and others too far away. He could go back to his room, wait for dawn, accept that he would not sleep, and sit there like an idiot staring at the ceiling until Ram found him with dark circles under his eyes and called him a "useless gardener due to lack of personal maintenance." He could also walk in the dark, trip over something expensive, and die socially before dying from anything else.
Then he remembered the other organ.
He brought a hand to his forehead.
The horns.
They were not simple ornaments. That had been explained to him. They were like an organ, a pathway for mana, a part of his oni nature that, as ridiculous as it still sounded to him, he could manifest without losing consciousness as long as he was not an idiot. The last time, he had brought them out under supervision, with Beatrice watching as if he were a badly filed problem and Rem observing with that calm that managed to make him feel more nervous than any direct threat. He did not want to use them on a whim. Nor did he want to depend on them for something as stupid as walking down a hallway.
But if they were part of his body, he needed to stop treating them like a curse reserved for emergencies.
He sighed, resting his back against the wall.
"This is stupid," he muttered. "But lately, stupid works better than reasonable."
He closed his eyes.
He did not seek rage or fear. He did not call the kagune. He did not think of Elsa, or Felt, or blood on old wood. He focused on his forehead, on the dormant pressure beneath the skin, on that feeling of heat that was not muscular but internal, as if the air had an invisible current and his bones could hear it. At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the skin tightened. Two points pushed from within, uncomfortable but not unbearable, and the horns emerged with clumsy softness, curving backward from his forehead.
This time, they did not merely appear.
They glowed.
It was not a strong light. It did not illuminate the hallway like a torch or turn the shadows into day. It was a faint glow, warm at the base and reddish at the tips, like embers covered by a thin layer of ash. The light extended only a few steps, enough to reveal the carpet, the moldings on the walls, and the nearby doors. Link opened his eyes and stared at the weak reflection on a side window.
"Ah," he said quietly. "That's new."
He touched one of the horns carefully. The light vibrated slightly, as if it had responded to the contact. It did not hurt, but he felt something strange: a kind of tingling behind his eyes, a soft awareness of mana moving through him. It was not true control. Not yet. It was more like holding a candle with trembling hands. If he got too distracted, perhaps it would go out. If he pushed, perhaps it would shine more than convenient. But for now, it worked.
He walked.
The hallway stopped being a black mouth and became a silent path. Link moved slowly, not out of fear of tripping, but out of respect for the hour. The mansion slept. Or pretended to sleep. Sometimes he heard wood settling, the brush of a curtain, the distant murmur of wind against the glass. His own footsteps sounded too loud, even though he tried to step carefully. The glow of his horns moved with him, brushing over paintings, corners, small decorative tables, and closed doors. Some doors seemed familiar. Others did not. He wondered how many times Subaru had gotten lost there before he started pretending he did it on purpose.
The thought of Subaru drew a small smile from him.
He was probably asleep. Or perhaps muttering some nonsense about Emilia in his dreams. After the ice cream night, Subaru had been more animated than usual, talking about how the "discovery of cacao" would change the history of Lugunica and how Link had to found a "secret dessert order." Link had told him to first survive washing dishes without making theater. Subaru had replied that history was always written by those who dirtied fewer dishes. Ram nearly made him wash another batch for that phrase.
He was annoying.
Loud.
Ridiculous.
And Link was glad he was there.
He kept walking until he reached a gallery with wide windows. Moonlight entered more freely in that stretch, silvering the floor and drawing long lines over the wood. Link approached a window and let the glow of his horns dim a little. On the other side, the gardens slept beneath the night. The hedges looked like dark masses, the paths barely distinguishable as pale scars between the grass, and beyond the tended grounds, the trees formed a black wall against the sky.
The moon was high.
Link placed a hand on the window frame and stared at it.
He did not know why it calmed him. Perhaps because it was one of the few things that seemed familiar without needing explanation. The moon could be in another sky, over another land, in a world with spirits, dragons, mana, oni, ghouls that should not exist, and painted nobles who smiled as if they knew the ending of the story. But it was still the moon. A pale circle in the darkness, indifferent and constant. When he was a child, when he could not sleep, he had looked at it too. When he had problems, when the world seemed too heavy, when he did not know what to do with his life, the moon was there. It solved nothing. It answered no questions. But at least it demanded no answers.
"What a mess," he whispered, without taking his eyes off the sky. "Look at me now."
Half-ghoul. Half-oni. Gardener. Improvised pastry chef. Monster wrapped around himself, according to Subaru. Capable of smelling bad fruit, making ice cream, breaking spoons, bringing out horns that lit hallways, and walking at night through a mansion where everyone seemed to be hiding something. If someone had told him that would be his life, he would have thought they were telling him the worst anime synopsis ever written.
Then he smelled it.
It was not a strong smell. Nor unpleasant. It was familiar in an immediate way: clean soap, freshly washed fabric, faint iron from hidden tools or weapons, kitchen herbs, a trace of mint that perhaps came from the dessert night, and something softer that he did not know how to name without feeling like an idiot.
Rem.
She was approaching through the hallway.
Link did not move immediately. His horns were still glowing, though more softly. A part of him wanted to withdraw them before she saw him, out of embarrassment or instinct. Another part decided it was already too late to pretend normality. Rem had seen him covered in blood, had seen him transformed, had seen him trying not to break planters, and had seen him endure Subaru's teasing for ending up wrapped like sushi. Two horns glowing in the night were probably not going to destroy any more dignity than he had already lost.
Rem's perspective began in the silence of the hallway.
She did not walk without purpose. The night in the mansion had routes, tasks, and rhythms the guests usually did not perceive. There were doors to check, utensils to leave ready for the morning, a side hallway that had to remain closed if the wind changed, and one last visit to the kitchen to make sure Subaru had not hidden any portion of ice cream where he should not. He had not. To Rem's surprise, Barusu had been too exhausted or too watched by Ram to commit that crime.
But the smell was still there.
Not the one from the kitchen. Not vanilla, nor the strawberry Puck had devoured with childish enthusiasm, nor the mint with chocolate that still faintly lingered on some washed containers. It was another smell, harder to ignore.
Link.
Since he had arrived at the mansion, Rem had learned to distinguish it, even if she did not want to admit it. Garden soil, sweet cream, metal, a trace of blood that was not on the skin but in the nature of his body, and that strange current of mana that resembled oni without being exactly the same. And beneath all of that, there was something that kept her alert, something unpleasant and familiar for reasons that tightened her throat if she thought too much about them.
The smell she hated.
Not as intense as in Barusu.
Not the same.
But close. Clinging to him like a shadow that did not fully belong to his body.
Rem advanced without making a sound.
She did not take her weapon. Not yet. There was no killing intent in the air, no impacts, no violent movement. Only an awake presence when everyone should have been sleeping. That was enough to investigate. The mansion protected Emilia-sama. Rem and Ram protected the mansion. Roswaal-sama was not in the hallways, Beatrice-sama was in her library, and Puck-sama should have already returned to Emilia-sama's crystal. If something was moving at that hour, Rem needed to know what it was.
Then she saw the light.
It was not a lamp. Nor a lagmite crystal. It was a reddish glow, faint, organic, moving from the gallery like a soft ember. Rem stopped at the edge of the hallway, her hand near her apron, her breathing controlled. One instant later, she understood.
Link was standing before the window.
His two horns were glowing.
Rem felt the world narrow for a second.
Two.
The word crossed her mind with painful clarity. Two horns, complete, symmetrical, emanating mana in a soft light that did not seem to belong to a weapon, but to a living organ. They were not like the single horn Rem had had. They were not like Ram's single horn before she lost it. They were two complete horns on the forehead of someone who did not know what it meant to have them, who had not been born in the village, who had not grown up under those gazes, who did not carry on his shoulders the exact weight of the word oni as she understood it.
And yet, there he was.
Not as an enemy. Not as pride. Not as a survivor claiming a place. Only as Link, standing in front of the moon because he could not sleep, using his horns as a clumsy lamp because he had no other way to see in the dark.
That was what hurt her most.
That he did not seem to understand how impossible it was.
Rem took another step.
Link turned his face slightly, without startling.
"I knew it was you," he said softly.
Rem stopped at a prudent distance.
"Because of the smell?"
He made a face.
"It sounds worse when you say it."
"But it is true."
"Yes. Because of the smell."
Rem looked at him in silence. The light of the horns drew soft shadows over his face, making him look more tired than dangerous. He had faint dark circles, somewhat disordered hair, and one hand resting on the window frame. There was no kagune. His eyes were still normal. His posture was not one of attack.
"You should be sleeping," Rem said.
"That's what I've been trying to tell my body for a while. It doesn't listen."
"Tomorrow's work will be difficult if you do not rest."
"Tomorrow's work is always difficult. The plants hate me with renewable energy."
Rem lowered her gaze slightly.
"The plants do not hate you."
"You say that because they respect you."
"Plants do not respect."
"Then explain to me why they die when I look at them wrong."
"Because you pull them out without first identifying whether they are weeds."
Link let out a low laugh. It was not loud, so as not to break the night. Rem noticed that the glow of his horns trembled slightly with the laughter, like a flame moved by air.
"Fair," he admitted.
Rem looked at the light.
"The horns are glowing."
Link lifted his gaze upward, as if he could see them directly.
"Yes. It surprised me too. I couldn't find a lamp, and I remembered they were a mana organ. I thought maybe they could... I don't know, do something useful. And look at them. Built-in demon flashlight."
"You should not spend mana without supervision."
"I know. But it doesn't feel like much. It's like holding a small candle. Uncomfortable, but not painful."
Rem came a little closer, enough to see better the faint flow around the horns. It was not stable. Beatrice-sama would have noticed immediately and called him clumsy, probably with reason. But it was not chaotic either. Link was learning. In a slow, reckless way, full of badly placed jokes and gardening accidents, but he was learning.
"The light is calm," Rem said.
Link looked at her in surprise.
"Is that good?"
"It is better than when you lost control."
"That is setting the bar on the floor."
"Even so, it is better."
He smiled faintly and looked back toward the moon.
"I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to wake Subaru, or anyone. Walking seemed better than staring at the ceiling like it owed me money."
Rem followed his gaze toward the window.
"Barusu is sleeping in his room."
"Yes. Separating us was a good idea. That idiot talks in his sleep."
"Rem knows."
Link looked at her.
"You've heard him?"
"The mansion is not as large as Barusu believes when he shouts in his sleep."
"What did he say?"
Rem remained silent for an instant.
"Emilia-sama was mentioned several times."
Link brought a hand to his face, and his laugh came out more tired than mocking.
"Of course."
The night settled between them again. Rem had no obligation to stay. She could order him back to his room, accompany him to the door, inform Ram, and close the matter as a minor irregularity. But she did not move. There was something in that scene that did not let her leave. Link looking at the moon with two horns illuminating the darkness did not seem like an intruder. Nor did he seem like a Witch Cultist, even though the unpleasant smell was still there, tied to him in a way Rem did not understand. He seemed like someone tired, alone, trying to negotiate with a body imposed on him for reasons no one explained.
"Do you look at the moon when you cannot sleep?" Rem asked.
Link took a moment to answer.
"I used to."
"Before the mansion?"
"Before many things."
He did not explain further.
Rem did not ask.
There were silences that resembled closed doors. Rem knew those kinds of doors very well. Some should not be opened just because one was curious.
"Rem has also looked at the moon when she cannot sleep," she said.
Link turned toward her.
He did not smile or make a foolish comment. He only listened.
Rem kept her gaze on the dark garden.
"The night can make thoughts louder."
"Yes," Link said, with a different softness. "Exactly that."
The glow of his horns dimmed a little, perhaps because he relaxed. Rem noticed it and took another step, not out of fear, but out of an instinct to supervise. If his mana fell too quickly, he could become dizzy. Beatrice-sama had said so. Link still did not know how to measure his own body. Rem opened her mouth to tell him to withdraw the horns and go back to rest.
She did not get the chance.
The change happened without warning.
The light of the horns suddenly contracted, as if someone had closed an invisible hand around a flame. Link brought a hand to his chest. There was no cut. No blow. No sound of a weapon, no enemy presence, no shadow crossing the hallway. Only a sudden cold that Rem felt even from where she stood, an unnatural interruption of mana in the air, as if something had torn out an essential thread from a place neither of them could see.
"Link?"
He tried to answer.
His lips moved, but no word came out. His eyes widened with clean surprise, without enough time for it to turn into fear. The horns shone one last time, too brightly for less than the blink of an eye, and then the light went out. His body immediately lost strength. He did not fold like someone wounded; he simply stopped holding himself up, as if life had been disconnected without any possible negotiation.
Rem moved before thinking.
She caught him by the shoulders before he hit the floor. Link's weight fell on her with a suddenness that would have knocked down anyone less trained, but Rem held him, lowering herself with him until one knee touched the ground. His head rested against her arm. The horns were still visible, but no longer glowing. The skin of his forehead was intact. His chest did not rise.
"Link."
This time her voice came out lower.
Rem searched for a pulse.
Nothing.
She searched for breathing.
Nothing.
She placed a hand near his mouth, then over his chest, then on his neck again, as if repeating the gesture could force the body to correct the result. There was no blood. No wound. No explanation. Only a warm body that, one instant ago, had been speaking to her about the moon.
"Link."
The word remained in the hallway.
Rem felt the unpleasant smell intensify for one second, not exactly from him, but from something that seemed to have passed through the mansion like an invisible current. Then it disappeared, leaving behind the scent of earth, mint, sweet cream, and extinguished mana.
The horns began retracting on their own.
Slowly, without light, sinking beneath the skin as if the body were trying to hide what it could no longer control. Rem held Link more tightly than necessary. She did not scream. Not at first. Her training, her discipline, her role inside the mansion, all of it closed around her like automatic armor. But beneath that armor, a crack was opening far too quickly.
It had not been an attack.
It had not been her.
It had not been anything she could cut, block, or pursue.
"Ram..." she finally murmured, and her voice barely managed to break the silence. "Ram."
Her sister's name came out as both a call and a plea.
Somewhere in the mansion, still sleeping beneath a false calm, another death had just claimed its place in the night. Rem did not know that. She could not know it. She only had in her arms the gardener who had prepared mint ice cream for her, the boy with two horns who did not understand his own blood, the stranger who smelled of things she hated and yet had told her he trusted her.
And while the moon continued shining beyond the glass, indifferent and pale, Link's life ended without even giving him time to fall alone.