Blood droplets floated at the sharp tip of the glass, which, tracing back to its origin, led to Rom-jii's throat.
Having lost an arm and with his throat slashed, Rom-jii spewed large quantities of bloody foam from his mouth, his gray eyes losing their light as he fell to the ground.
There was already no strength left in his convulsing body, and there was no doubt that life had left him.

Facing the fallen giant, Elsa gracefully bowed as if to pay her respects.
Placing the glass, which had become the final weapon, at the barely trembling feet of Rom-jii,

"I'll return this. I don't need it anymore,"

She said cruelly, spinning the kukri knife in her hand.
Wiping the blood that stained the blade's edge red, Elsa once again pointed its tip at the two.

Subaru, who had collapsed on the spot, was at a loss for words.
His consciousness was utterly consumed by the brutal slaughter that had just taken place before his eyes.
The person with whom he had exchanged words just minutes ago was dead. And not taken by accident or illness, but through the clear malice of another.

"Oh my, it seems you are braver," Elsa said with an impressed tone, prompting Subaru to look up.
His limbs unresponsive to his will, Subaru found a dazed Felt standing before him, striking her trembling knees to bolster herself.
Straightening her legs, she brushed her blood-splattered blonde hair back.

"You've really done it now...," Felt said.

From Subaru's position behind her, her expression was invisible.
However, her wrenching words of enmity were not delivered in a tearful voice.

"If you resist any further, you might experience some real pain," Elsa warned.

"You're planning to kill us even if we don't fight back, you damn sadist," Felt spat.

"If you move, my hand might slip. I'm not very good with blades," Elsa replied, deftly spinning the knife in her hand as if rehearsing to cut them into pieces.
Facing her, Felt was unarmed, with no chance of victory.

Subaru's brain concluded that he needed to speak.
He needed to make a sound, draw Elsa's attention toward himself, and buy Felt some time to escape.
At the very least, he needed to give her the time to call for someone or to flee herself.

Despite his meager experience, Subaru analyzed the difference in combat power between himself and his opponent and reached a conclusion.

Nonetheless, his throat seemed frozen, unable to emit any sound. His limbs refused to act with fighting spirit, instead trembling as if seized by fear.

"...Sorry for getting you involved."

"...I-I'm..."

These small, faint words of apology from Felt were directed at the immobilized Subaru. Hearing them, Subaru jerked his head up as if by reflex, forgetting the scream he should have let out, uttering only a whining plea for forgiveness.

And then, leaving Subaru's sentiment far behind, Felt sprang forward.

The sound of her steps was sharp, her leap light as a feather. As Felt began to run—the very next moment, a whirlwind tore through the warehouse.

Right after her dash, Subaru's eyes lost sight of Felt as if she had vanished. The next time he saw her, Felt was right beside Elsa, her thin leg driving into Elsa’s side, who widened her eyes at Felt's speed.

After landing a hit, Felt bounced back as if propelled, launching herself into top speed once more. In the confined space of the warehouse, she moved unpredictably and ferociously, treating even the walls as part of the terrain. Not even Elsa could hide her surprise at this acrobatic display.

"The blessing of the wind. Ah, how wonderful. You are loved by the world, aren't you?—So envious."

Her ecstatic smile twisted into one filled with black hatred, and Elsa’s arm bent and swung with a deadly force. With just that movement,

"—Ah."

—Felt, struck from shoulder to torso, tumbled violently to the ground, unable to break her fall.

The wound ran from her left shoulder to her right side, deep enough to sever bones and reach her internal organs. Blood gushed from her upturned body like a fountain in sync with her heartbeat. She didn’t twitch, probably already unconscious from the pain and shock of the slash. Within seconds, the blood's flow weakened, silently indicating the end of her life.

His body wouldn't move.
He wanted to go to the fallen Felt and close her wounds.
If it was already too late for that, he at least wanted to close her open eyelids.
Even that, his body rejected, and it had turned into a useless organ that only sent blood mixed with pain throughout his entire body.

"The old man and the girl have fallen, and yet you don't move. Have you given up?"

Elsa said in a voice that almost sounded pitiful, looking at the dazed Subaru with blatant boredom.
If she got closer and simply swung her knife, it would all be over. Perhaps because the outcome was so predictable, there was not a trace of tension in her actions, and she even seemed on the verge of stifling a yawn.

Subaru felt an unbearable anger towards Elsa's demeanor.
They had only known each other for a short time, just enough to form a bond of about an hour.
However, they had talked a fair amount and shared some feelings with each other. The nonchalant attitude of her having killed them so carelessly and without a hint of remorse was unacceptable.
And more than anything, he couldn't forgive himself for standing before someone deserving of contempt and allowing his two companions to die.

A too-late burst of anger surged through Subaru’s limbs, giving him the drive to move.
He placed his trembling limbs on the ground, entering the sequence of somehow standing up in a beast-like posture. Whether his body's tremors were due to anger or fear, or both, he couldn't tell.

"Oh, so you're finally getting up. It's late, boring, but not bad."

Subaru bared his teeth and charged at Elsa, who brandished her kukri knife.
He pounced, relying solely on strength past his limits to beat her down.
That sudden charge,

"But it's absolutely useless."

With an elbow strike that seemed to smash his snout, Elsa countered him head-on.
She turned her body, and with minimal movement, struck him with her elbow. Her long legs formed an arc and hit the reeling Subaru, effortlessly blasting him backward.
He crashed into the shelf where ceramics were scattered, fell, and toppled to the ground amidst the flying shards.

In just one brief moment of combat, his nose and front teeth were ruined. His side, which took the full force of a kick, was in intense pain, and he felt as if several bones were broken.
Even so, he slammed his fist into the ground and stood up immediately. The endorphins coursing through his body made the unprecedented pain unrecognizable.
Breathing raggedly in his state of excitement, Subaru once again attacked recklessly—only to be countered.

His wildly swinging arms did not reach Elsa, and her flexing arm crushed Subaru's shoulder with the back of a knife.
As if annoyed by his scream of agony, she kicked his chin from below, forcibly cutting off his scream. Broken front teeth fell out, and as Subaru crumbled to the ground, Elsa looked down at him.

"Completely useless. Just as I see, your movements are clumsy like an amateur's. You have no divine protection or skills, and when I thought you might at least be clever, you weren’t even that. Why on earth do you challenge me?"

"Shut...up...it's my pride...if I just get beaten like this..."

His broken nose made it impossible for him to even hurl a proper insult.
His arm had been made useless by the counter, leaving his left shoulder limp. He couldn't feel the pain, but the ringing in his ears was severe. He spewed out his anger and the nausea that had returned, and struggled to stand up, swaying.
He was battered and beaten. He had zero chance of victory, and the possibility of landing even a single blow was one in ten thousand.
Even in this utterly bleak situation, Subaru stood up, and Elsa sighed softly.

"I'll give you credit for your outstanding spirit. If you had shown it sooner, maybe things would have turned out a bit differently for these two."

With a knife dangling from one hand, Elsa gestured to the two lifeless bodies she had slain.
Following the movement to the two bodies, Subaru suddenly felt a sense of familiarity and knitted his brows.

Why is it, he wondered, that this scene feels so familiar?

The warehouse of stolen goods turned into a sea of blood. A giant body fallen, missing an arm and with its neck severed. And a dimly lit interior where a dull, gleaming copper blade lay—
A sudden thought flashed like lightning through Subaru's mind. That was—

"Let's end this. I'll send you to meet the angels."

She licked her red lips, and her bewitching smile melted into the darkness.
With a movement so sleek it appeared as if she sank into the shadows, Subaru lost track of the looming threat and his throat let out a groan.

"Wh-where...!?"

With restless glances darting around, sharpening his senses to sounds and presences, he waited to see what would emerge.

His state resembled nothing more than the pitiful sight of a weakling awaiting to be hunted by a beast. To Elsa, it likely seemed as laughable as a defenseless carp lying on a chopping board.

Thus, the slash that emerged so deftly from the shadows was nothing short of straight and vivid.

"What—!?"

He barely managed to dodge the attack aimed at his abdomen that Subaru had already concluded was inevitable.

By making a short leap backwards and pulling his body back, he narrowly avoided being slashed across his belly. The blade grazed him, lightly slicing the skin of his abdomen, sending sharp pain surging through him, which he gritted his teeth to endure.

“Rrrrrrrrrrrraaaaah!!”

And with all his might, his roundhouse kick struck Elsa's face from the side. It was a decisive blow, with the sensation of a solid hit spreading through his body, giving him a palpable feeling of having struck back.

“Ah, that was very...pleasurable.”

Elsa, who had drawn a second kukri knife from her waist, slashed Subaru's torso about seventy percent, spilling his blood and entrails.

“Huh?”

Staggering one step, then another, he stumbled against a wall and slid down to the ground. Looking down, blood gushed endlessly from his abdomen, threatening to spill out its contents under the pressure.

With a trembling arm, he tried to push his innards back into place, but was thwarted by the rising blood clots.

“Surprised? I slashed your abdominal skin as we passed by. This is the one thing I'm really good at.”

Laughing, Elsa walked through the pool of blood, her steps echoing wetly. She approached Subaru, who could only let out gasping groans without words, and gazed lovingly at the dark blood-soaked organs spilling out.

“Ah, indeed; your intestines are such a beautiful color.”

This woman is abnormal. She is insane. The excruciating pain blurred his vision, and before he knew it, Subaru’s body had slumped sideways to the floor. In that position, his trembling arm slowly reached out, weakly grabbing Elsa’s foot before him.

“Ah...ah…”

“Does it hurt? Suffer? Feel agonizing? Feel sad? Want to die?”

As Elsa kept her grip on Subaru's ankle, she bent her knees and met his gaze.
Her eyes were ecstatic, showing no emotion about the fact that she was about to take the life of a human being. No, she did have emotions about it.
It was nothing short of pure happiness.

"But it can't be easy."

With a bewitching smile, she swung her deadly blade while still crouching.
And that was the last sight Subaru saw.

The slash ran vividly, cutting across Subaru's face. The result was—

"Aaaaaaaaaaagh!?"

Both of his eyelids were slashed open, leaving him eternally blind.

Lying flat on the ground, Subaru touched his deeply cut eyes with his hands.
Blood and tears mixed together, and from his screaming mouth, he repeatedly coughed up blood endlessly, with the sense that his insides—blood and entrails—had completely spilled out.

It was a condition that made it a wonder he was still alive. A condition that made living seem like hell.
He couldn't even see his own appearance, not knowing when he would die, in a nearly lifeless state.

"Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, writhe."

With a mocking tone, a caressing tone, a lamenting tone, a loving tone, a cherishing tone, Elsa's voice gently hit Subaru's eardrums as he approached the end.

Pain, suffering, anger, and sorrow were all completely smeared over by jet-black fear.
In a world where his vision was useless, in a world where he didn't know when his life would end, the only thing that dominated Subaru's empty heart was the fear of death relentlessly coming upon him.

When will he die? When will he die? Is he still alive? Isn't he already dead?
What defines life? Can this state, worse than an insect’s, be called living? Can this manipulation of life and death be called living?
What is life and death? Why is dying so scary? Is living necessary or not?
Scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared, scared.

The unending wave, an absolute rejection of death from his instinct.
It completely filled Subaru's brain, which was now at the brink of the end, turning his sealed vision entirely white, and—

—Ah, he's dead.

With such sentiments in his final moments, Natsuki Subaru's life came to an abrupt end.