"Impossible!"
For the first ti, a flicker of genuine shock crossed Elsa's dark-crimson eyes.
But she made her decision in almost the sa instant she registered the danger.
Without a mont's hesitation, the kukri clutched in her left hand carved a shrill arc through the air — and she severed her own injured right arm.
Shhhk——!
Blood erupted like a geyser!
Elsa's forearm, along with the lethal ice flower blooming upon it, dropped to the filthy ground with a dull, wet thud.
The searing agony of a severed limb wrung a muffled grunt from her throat, cold sweat beading at her temple.
And yet those crimson eyes locked onto Emilia with unwavering intensity — blazing with frenzied hatred, and sothing else… the exhilarated thrill of being backed into a corner?
But when she caught the look in Emilia's eyes — cold, utterly unmoved, like soone regarding a corpse — she realized sothing was wrong.
She snapped her gaze downward and saw it: her own desperate self-amputation had only caused more blood to spray outward in every direction.
That warm, living blood acted like a fatal signal — and the ice elents Emilia was commanding, diffused through the very air around them, answered it instantly.
More controlled ice elents sward in like sharks that had scented blood in open water.
They coiled greedily around the spurting wound, straining to crystallize again, to invade once more.
"Damn little brat!"
Elsa hissed the words through clenched teeth.
In that razor-thin window of crisis, she rapidly stanched the wound, then without a second thought tore away the pitch-black cloak draped over her shoulders and flung it into the air between them.
In an instant, a layer of dark-violet light mbrane blazed to life — fleeting beyond asure, yet startlingly resilient.
Seeing it, Emilia acted without hesitation, releasing another volley of ice lances straight at Elsa.
But the mbrane held like the most impenetrable of shields, severing all contact from the ice mana attempting to close in — sealing the spraying blood and exposed wound firmly behind its barrier.
Elsa seized that precious, stolen instant. Swallowing the pain, she moved like a phantom — bursting backward several ters in a single motion to open a safe distance between them.
The cloak could not sustain itself; it shredded apart a breath later. But those few borrowed seconds had been enough — enough for her to invoke her special constitution of undeath and dramatically amplify her regeneration.
In the span of a heartbeat, her severed arm had regrown. Not a single wound remained on her body.
The muscles in Elsa's pallid face twitched faintly. She fixed Emilia with a dangerous, unreadable stare, as though working sothing out behind those eyes.
A long silence passed.
Then, with no warning at all, she laughed — easy and light, as if sothing genuinely funny had just occurred to her.
"Do you know what you look like right now? A little animal guarding its food."
The smile faded slowly. Elsa's gaze drifted past Emilia to Natsuki Subaru standing behind her, and a puzzled look settled into her expression.
"Is that why that man valued you so highly, back then?"
She murmured the words half to herself, montarily drifting away in thought.
"Hold on a mont, Emilia-tan — I have sothing I need to ask her."
Natsuki Subaru held Emilia back before she could launch another assault, then couldn't stop himself from voicing the question that had been burning in him as he looked at the dazed Elsa across the way.
"Elsa — how do you know who I am? And what did you an by what you just said?"
Natsuki Subaru pressed her, his voice tight with urgency.
Because Elsa's appearance here had already overturned his earlier assumptions entirely.
Never mind that this was a character who had died as far back as the Sanctuary arc. Even if she had sohow survived — there should have been no connection between her and him. None whatsoever.
So what in the world was going on…?
"Oh my. So you're different from , are you?"
Elsa ca back to herself, tilting her nose toward Natsuki Subaru as though she were inhaling the air around him.
"That's right — the you that stands before now hasn't yet grown into the prey I know. Which ans, for now——"
Elsa paused for a mont's thought, then drew both blades back to the sheaths at her hips, abandoning her combat stance.
In this mont, there was nothing threatening about her at all.
The only change from before was the loss of her pitch-black cloak — which had, of course, also left a considerable expanse of snow-white skin exposed to the open air.
"Elsa — where do you think you're going? You still haven't answered my question!"
Subaru's brow furrowed as he called out, trying to stop Elsa, who had already turned and was heading off in a particular direction as if the conversation were over.
But Elsa didn't answer. She only glanced back over her shoulder with a bewitching smile, one finger curling against her ruby lips.
"The stage has already been set. We may as well see the play through to its end."
"And then — I shall et once more the prey that belongs to , and alone~"
"The direction Elsa's heading… that's the Stolen Goods Warehouse!"
Natsuki Subaru jolted awake to the realization, recognizing Elsa's destination.
"Is she going to steal the badge? Kill soone? Or is there so other purpose entirely?"
No good — he didn't have enough information to work with. He couldn't figure it out.
Natsuki Subaru felt a headache building, because he had absolutely no way of knowing which world-line Elsa's mories had co from.
But there was no ti to untangle that now. He had to catch up to her.
Felt, old Rom — he couldn't gamble their lives on the hope that Elsa had changed her nature.
"Emilia-tan, this way — let's go, quickly!"
Natsuki Subaru grabbed Emilia's wrist and broke into a run.
Emilia had been wearing a stern expression a mont before — but the instant her hand was seized, her cheeks flooded crimson.
She let him pull her along, dropping her gaze to follow close at his heels, stepping through the shadow the sun cast behind him as she went.
As for what to do about Elsa — she would follow Subaru's lead. Only his.
If Subaru wanted her dead, Emilia would not hesitate for a second. If Subaru wanted to speak with her, Emilia would obediently spare her life for now.
Wherever they were, whatever the mont — the only person Emilia truly cared about now was Subaru. Him, and no one else.
——
Dusk was spreading through the alleys like spilled ink, seeping deeper and deeper through the cracks between the stone.
The youngest Sword Saint in the Kingdom's living mory, Reinhard van Astrea, stood at the mouth of an alleyway on its worn flagstones, taking in the scene before him with a contemplative gaze.
His hand rested without thinking against the scabbard at his hip — the dragon sword that had accompanied him for years was as quiet as ever, yet the curve of his knuckles betrayed the tension in his grip.
Before him, sprawled in a wide pool of blood, lay three n of varying height and build.
The wounds riddling their bodies — perforated in multiple places — spoke to the brutal efficiency of whoever had done this.
"The lingering aura at the wounds… it feels sowhat familiar."
Reinhard's brow creased slightly. His eyes drifted, seemingly without intent, to a scattering of small wet drops on the ground not far from the pool of blood.
Sothing seed to occur to him — but in the next instant he shook his head and dismissed the thought.
"It couldn't be that noble lady. Her character is nothing short of pure and beautiful goodness itself."
"But then, who did this?"
Reinhard turned over one face after another in his mind, running through the possibilities.
The Bowel Hunter? But corpses she left behind never looked like this.
"No — I can't leave this alone. It may be my day off, but please, allow to contribute what little I can to the safety of the Royal Capital."
Reinhard's expression sharpened, his face settling into grave seriousness.
He raised his hand toward the pool of blood, closed it into a fist, and concentrated — conveying to the world itself his desire to understand what had happened here.
The world did not make him wait. It answered, and it gave.
[Blessing of Truth]
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