Especially kids this young. They deserved at least one chance.
"By the way, I never caught your name."
Gojo turned to the girl.
"Meili."
Dragged back a second time with nothing to show for her escape attempt, Meili didn't look particularly rattled. No sulking, no panic. That mischievous glint still danced behind her eyes, as if she hadn't given up in the slightest.
"Meili. Alright, you're coming with us for now."
Taking her wasn't optional. Compared to the Royal Capital, this place was remote. If they left Meili unhandled, the villagers would remain in danger. What came after, whether it was a stern lecture or handing her over to the capital's guard, could be sorted out later.
"You know, I'm starting to notice a pattern." Gojo scratched his cheek. "First Felt, then Betty, now Meili. And if we're really counting, Emilia, Ram, and Rem probably qualify too."
He'd caught the dip in Subaru's mood and steered the conversation somewhere lighter on purpose.
"Yeah... I guess so."
A faint, distracted reply. But it was something.
The group gathered the children and started back toward the village.
Then it happened.
They were walking a narrow trail worn through the forest by animals when a sound, barely a whisper, split the air.
A violet blur erupted from the trees.
The speed was inhuman. Subaru couldn't process it. Beatrice couldn't process it. Neither of them understood what was happening until the gleam of a blade materialized directly in front of them, and every instinct they had screamed danger at once.
"Well, well. Fancy meeting you here, Miss Elsa."
Gojo's voice cut through the moment, calm as a greeting between neighbors. In the same breath, the blade stopped dead.
The Bowel Hunter. Elsa. Kukri in hand, halted mid-strike.
"You?!"
"You're supposed to be dead!"
The words tore out of Subaru before he could stop them. His pulse hammered. Back in the Slums, he'd watched Gojo fight this woman with his own eyes, watched the attack that should have erased her completely. There hadn't been a shadow left. Gojo himself had said she was finished.
And yet here she stood.
"What a unique way to say hello." Elsa regarded Subaru's shock with a soft laugh, the tip of a crimson tongue tracing her lower lip.
"Though..." Her gaze slid to Gojo. "You don't seem surprised at all."
Of everyone present, only one person held her attention. Only one demanded her caution. The last time they'd fought, she'd felt his strength with painful clarity. Without the Curse Doll's regeneration, she would have died for real.
That Curse was extraordinary. Even total destruction of her body couldn't stop it from pulling her back together. In some respects, it rivaled Gojo's own Reverse Cursed Technique.
That first encounter in the Slums was precisely why he'd misjudged her. He'd assumed no one could survive what he'd dealt, and written her off. If he hadn't stumbled across Roswaal meeting with Elsa in a previous loop, he might never have guessed she was still alive.
He'd been waiting on the Knights' Order to pay out her bounty, after all. The silence had been his first clue.
"Of course I'm not surprised." Gojo shrugged. "Do you know how long I waited for that bounty? Not a single word back. So I started thinking maybe you had some kind of special trick that let you survive."
"I see. How disappointing for you that I didn't stay dead."
Elsa smiled. Something shifted behind those dark, fathomless eyes, a pressure building beneath the surface.
"Not at all." He matched her smile with one of his own. "You've hand-delivered the opportunity right back to me."
He passed the child he'd been carrying to Subaru, then handed Meili off to Beatrice with a look that said watch her.
Elsa's eyes narrowed to slits, tracking his every movement like a viper waiting for an opening.
Gojo laced his fingers together, turned his palms outward, and began stretching. Right there, in front of her.
"Let's make this quick. We've got places to be. Any later and we'll miss dinner."
Curiosity hummed beneath his composure. Two things about Elsa fascinated him.
First, her regeneration. His Reverse Cursed Technique granted him remarkable endurance in battle, but it had a hard ceiling. If an attack obliterated his entire body in a single instant, no amount of healing could bring him back. At his current level of mastery, the most he could manage was restoring his head after it had been destroyed, and only if he'd braced for it in the exact moment of impact. The timing had to be flawless.
Elsa's injuries last time had been far worse than that. By his estimate, the better part of her body had been reduced to dust. And she'd still come back. That kind of resilience was worth studying. If he could understand even part of it, it might push his own abilities further.
Second, there was the matter of Roswaal. He was genuinely curious what the man had bargained with Elsa for, and what drove him to do it. Capturing her might answer every lingering question at once.
"Confident as ever, I see."
Mid-sentence, Elsa's form dissolved into the forest. Like a drop of water vanishing into the ocean. Soundless. Even the rustle of wind seemed to die around her.
Trying to track her through observation alone would have been a fool's errand. As an assassin, Elsa's technique was every bit as refined as her raw power.
Gojo stood in the center of the trail, still stretching, making no effort whatsoever to search for her. With the Six Eyes granting him a full three-hundred-sixty-degree field of awareness, it didn't matter which direction she came from. He'd react before the strike landed.
He was bent forward, fingers reaching for his toes, when several gleaming needles burst from the dim forest and screamed toward him.
"We've done this dance before. You'd think you'd have picked up some new moves by now."
He didn't bother dodging. The needles sailed in and stopped dead against nothing.
Hidden among the trees, Elsa ignored the taunt entirely. If anything, the barrage intensified. More needles, faster, from shifting angles.
And not all of them were aimed at Gojo. Beatrice, Subaru, Meili, the children... she targeted everyone.
"Tch."
Attacks against him were meaningless. Attacks against the others were not.
Gojo moved to intercept, but before he could, something small arced out of the forest. Egg-sized, tumbling end over end. It didn't fly toward anyone. It struck the ground between them.
The detonation was instantaneous. Thick smoke erupted outward, swallowing Gojo and the entire group in seconds.
"Hm?"
He stood inside the billowing cloud, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"So that's what this is about."
His figure vanished from the smoke.
Beatrice, meanwhile, had her guard raised. She'd deflected the earlier needles with magic and hadn't relaxed for a moment since. Her attention split between the unseen enemy and the Mabeast Tamer standing right beside her.
"Hey, can you let go of me now?"
Meili's voice floated up through the haze.
Beatrice's brow creased. "I'd advise you not to move. I'm not nearly as patient as that man..."
Before she finished, a blade flashed toward the hand gripping Meili.
Beatrice's pupils contracted. She released Meili on reflex, magic already gathering to strike back into the smoke.
But a figure materialized between them, scattering the haze with the force of his arrival.
"All that fuss, and it was about Meili the whole time."
Gojo stood between Meili and Elsa, that same easy smile in place.
Elsa didn't hesitate. She threw herself backward, and in the same motion, cracked the spine of her Kukri against something on her body. Another eruption of smoke consumed her.
"Elsa!"
Meili lunged after the retreating figure, but Gojo caught her by the collar.
The pieces clicked into place.
He'd been wondering what exactly Roswaal had contracted Elsa for this time. Now it was obvious. That man hadn't just sent Elsa after Emilia. He'd gone further, striking a second deal. Meili was Elsa's partner, planted inside the village to manipulate the Mabeasts against the villagers and Subaru alike.
Though if Gojo had to guess, Subaru had simply blundered into the crosshairs on his own. Roswaal's real target had always been Emilia. Every time, Subaru had just been the one absorbing the blow meant for her.
"Looks like you two are pretty close."
He watched the last wisps of smoke where Elsa had vanished, then glanced down at Meili.
Caught red-handed, the girl offered an awkward look over her shoulder. "I mean... not that close. She did just leave me behind, so..."
"Abandoning a friend? That's terrible. Don't worry, I'll go drag her back for you."
Meili's expression froze in bewilderment. Before she could respond, Gojo was gone, swallowed by the smoke.
"You were about to run just now, weren't you?"
The instant he left, a voice, low and cold, slithered into Meili's ear.
She turned. Beatrice stepped out of the thinning haze, face utterly devoid of warmth. Something about the sight of this blonde girl with twin tails and murder in her eyes sent a chill straight through Meili's chest.
"Wh... what are you going to do?"
"Betty may not be fond of that man, but letting you nearly slip away was a failure on her part." Her stare bore into Meili like a blade. "And Betty does not tolerate her own failures."
Elsewhere in the forest, Gojo closed the distance.
Elsa had made her decision the moment she saw Meili in captivity. If the rescue failed, she wouldn't linger. She'd retreat without a second thought.
Having "died" once at Gojo's hands, she understood one thing with absolute certainty: she could not beat him. No amount of effort would change that outcome. The fundamental problem, how to so much as wound him, remained unsolvable. In their first fight, she couldn't have landed a scratch even by trading her life for it. Not unless he'd allowed it.
So the instant Meili's extraction failed, Elsa ran. Staying alive meant future chances to retrieve Meili. Dying meant none at all.
But even with that pragmatic calculus already factored in, she'd underestimated him.
When she saw the figure streaking toward her through the sky, she stopped running. She planted her feet and waited.
"Done already?"
Gojo descended, tone light, as if catching up with an old friend.
"I don't waste effort on pointless things," Elsa said. She brushed a strand of hair from her face, composed, unhurried, despite standing before an enemy she knew she couldn't defeat.
"What a coincidence." A grin spread across his face. "Neither do I."
"So let's talk about Roswaal."
Elsa tilted her head. "Who's that?"
He chuckled. "Come on. Professional loyalty is cute and all, but we're a little past that, don't you think? I already said his name. That means I already know."
She shrugged, Kukri still loose in her grip, entirely unmoved by the invitation.
Then she attacked.
"Honestly, I'm not that hard to talk to."
Gojo watched her come, something close to genuine exasperation crossing his features.
Elsa flickered. One light push off a tree trunk was all it took. She materialized in front of him in a blink, Kukri carving downward with everything she had.
...
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