“Bored. Long before my mind whispers ‘I’m going to kill you,’ my body’s already done the work, like a blade finishing a thought.”

That line rings true, because Ling doesn’t want Ait dead yet. So he isn’t. If he died now, it’d be a clean mercy, and she won’t grant mercy like rain.

Blown—more blown than kicked—Ait slumps against the wall like a torn banner. That last hit sent his organs on a roller coaster through fog and knives.

He swallows the storm of pain, then spits the blood that clawed up his throat. A crooked smile blooms, a cracked moon on a ruined pond.

“Yare yare… a variable off the board, huh? The future’s uncertainty is a river that won’t be dammed.”

Ling sets Alicia on an empty chair, like laying a petal on still water. In her arms, Alicia won’t sleep well; the chair will cradle her better.

Ait watches her lower Alicia, and threads snap into a net. His failure writes itself across the wall like shadow.

Why didn’t Ling’s mana get parsed? Simple as morning frost. From the door to Ling’s fainting, it was quick as a falling leaf.

After she went out, Alicia scooped her up like a treasure and never let her touch ground. No ground, no parsing. End of tale.

Was it luck or fate? It feels like fate, a red string tugging the wrist.

“Yare yare, so fate still wants me dead. A wish the world won’t accept is a stone the river won’t move.”

Ling’s reply cuts in like winter wind. “First off, I’m not hitting you because of your dumb [bleep] wish. You pissed me off.”

“That freaky dream, and you hurting my sister—” she pauses, a cold flick of the eye “—not really—are enough to hang you up and beat you.”

“I could break both legs, then make you crawl to buy liquor and fennel beans. Not a problem. Then… second thing. I won’t kill you.”

Another surprise trips the wire, but Ait’s heart is ash and still. He accepts the news like a stone accepts rain.

“If you won’t kill me, why?”

“Ummm… because between you and @@@, you’re short two ats?”

Ait thinks for a long beat, then slaps his palm like a lantern lighting. “I see!” He doesn’t see a thing, and the smile shows it.

“So… if I’m not dying, what happens to me next?”

“Worse than death.”

“…”

He thinks, better to let me die, like a whisper sinking in dusk. He doesn’t say it. He knows when to bite his tongue.

He neither pleads nor rages. Ling’s view of him shifts a hair, from negative infinity to negative infinity minus one, like frost thinning but not melting.

Since a man like this has a sliver of spine, Ling doesn’t mind making the moment gentler—by turning him into a limbless stick.

Cute face, cruel words: sugar on a knife. She lifts her hand. She’ll do it herself. There’s a blade nearby, but she won’t stain Alicia’s beloved steel.

Better to stain herself a little, like ink on a fingertip. Mana winds around her palm like silk thread in spring wind.

A near-transparent green sheath blooms over her soft pink hand, a leaf-bright glove. It harvests life without splashing filth.

“Then, game star—”

“Thud thud thud…” ×∞

She said it long ago: her ears aren’t Beastfolk fluff or Elvenfolk points. They aren’t ornaments. They drink the world like a still lake drinks rain.

That “thud thud thud” is chaos to most, but to her it’s a drumline. Many feet. Armored. Trained. Rhythm tight as bowstrings.

She narrows her focus, a hawk on a field. From the weight of their tread, they’re in their early twenties, the Elvenfolk’s backbone, all running here.

She’s no Holmes, but she’s played enough games to know a law carved in stone. The guards always arrive late, like thunder after lightning.

They show up when the player’s cleaned the mess, then bring new trouble like a second wave in a storm.

Now she has to face a hard fact, cold as iron. If she doesn’t kill Ait now, the Elvenfolk will come.

What waits for him is their punishment, a sentence under a green canopy. Maybe fatal, maybe not. A coin flipping in fog.

Not allowed. She won’t let it end like that. He must die, like a candle pinched out before dawn.