The sidearm was cold against Hikari's head.
Raizen saw it and everything inside him went very, very quiet. Not the Maw - the Maw kept moving. Ceiling fans pushing air, food sending up steam, someone's glass dropping and shattering on the floor.
But inside Raizen, sound fell away. His breath cut. His body remembered something older.
For a white flash he saw the village wall exploding. His father's feet leaving the ground. His mother's broken voice urging him to run.
The whisper slid through his mind, cold and absolute.
Protect her.
He finally understood. If he moved too late, he would lose Hikari the same way.
The fear didn't make him shake. It emptied him. The boy was gone. What the Rust Room built stood up - something colder, something efficient, something that didn't hesitate.
Two things happened at once:
Hikari went statue-still.
And Raizen moved.
A fraction of a second and his hand was already on the pistol, wrenching the barrel off Hikari's skull and straight up before the bodyguard could react. No time for shock, no time for anything but motion.
Raizen spun inside the guard's reach, wrenched the wrist, folded the elbow. The arm snapped into a lock - brutal, clean, inescapable. Hand trapped, elbow pinned, shoulder captured. The gun had nowhere to go except into Raizen's hands.
Then the lights went out. The bodyguard's lights.
Three touches: one under the ear, two fingers at the jaw hinge, a short cruel rake where nerves lived. The guard's body went limp, dropped to the ground.
The weapon hummed as Raizen turned on his heel. The tables had turned. The gun's dark mouth now pointed at another head.
Marcus Valerius's.
From first touch to sight picture, less than a breath had passed.
The Rust Room had finally shown the weapon it created.
The music fell apart. The dice forgot to roll.
Marcus didn't flinch. Calm was his armor and he wore it well, the way a cornered king accepts checkmate with dignity. His hands lifted, fingers loose. His eyes were careful, as they'd been when Obi walked up.
But they were not the same eyes. Terror lived behind them now.
"You don't want to do that," Marcus said, voice different now.
"I don't want to do a lot of things." Raizen's voice frightened him - flat, emotionless, cold. It didn't sound like him at all. "Let her go."
Behind him, Hikari finally exhaled. She hadn't moved when the barrel pressed in, didn't move now. But her heart was hammering.
"Sorry to be interrupting your little moment, but it might be a wonderful idea to listen to the guy with the gun," Obi suggested, grin wiped clean.
Marcus didn't glance at his fallen guard. He looked at the barrel, at the darkness inside it that could mean death, any second now. His life was in someone else's hands now.
Then he looked at Hikari's trapped wrist and smiled - a professional expression that couldn't quite hide his trembling fingers.
"Of course," he said softly. "We all want the same thing. No one needs to die here."
He moved slowly. Two fingers pulled a flat piece of metal from his vest's hidden pocket - thick like a coin with a notch cut out, a crown symbol etched in brass. He brought it up where Raizen could see.
"On the table," Raizen said.
Marcus obeyed. Set the token by the case's base and pushed it in. The bolt that had driven through wood pulled back up and vanished. The case became portable again.
"The cuffs," Raizen continued.
Marcus's mouth twitched. "Key," he said, almost apologetically, pulling a thin metal thing from inside his pocket watch.
Hikari didn't look at Marcus. Her eyes stayed on Raizen - not afraid of him, but afraid for him. She could see it in his face. Something had changed.
Marcus twisted the key. The steel clicked, opened. Hikari withdrew her hand, flexed her fingers, and slid the case off the table with her other hand.
The Maw started murmuring again.
"Take it and leave," Marcus said, still soft, still polite. Sweat pearled at his hairline. "You have what you came for. We can pretend this never happened."
Raizen unloaded the sidearm with one precise movement. Every bullet clattered to the floor, meaningless now.
Then without another word, he turned and walked toward the exit.
Obi and Hikari followed quietly.
At the door, Obi's smile returned all at once as if it had been hiding behind the last table.
"The beef really was great," he told the barman in passing. "Send one extra to our place. Put it on his tab."
"Obi," Hikari warned.
"Right, right. Leaving."
They stepped out, back into the Underworks.
For a long time, no one spoke.
Raizen's hands remembered they were normal, human hands, and began to shake.
"Are you okay?" Obi asked without looking.
Raizen stayed quiet. He was shocked by his own capability. In that moment with the gun in his hand, he hadn't felt fear or anger. He'd felt something worse.
The same boy who'd watched his parents die, helpless and frozen. The same boy who'd sworn to protect, never to hurt.
But when Marcus's life was his to take, he'd felt something cold and sharp. Not rage. Not even justice.
Bloodlust.
A satisfaction at having power over someone else's breath.
It made him want to throw up.
He swallowed hard. "I don't know."
"You moved like you slowed down time," Obi said, trying to make it a compliment.
Hikari matched Raizen's steps, her hand slightly brushing his. She wanted to say "you saved my life" but the words just wouldn't come.
They turned into a narrower lane, avoiding busier streets.
The gun in Raizen's coat had cooled to his body temperature. He could still feel it there, a weight that hadn't existed an hour ago.
The cold whisper returned, curling through his thoughts like smoke.
Good. You protected her.
A pause. Then softer, almost gentle:
Next time, don't let them walk away.
Raizen's stomach turned. The voice wasn't just protecting Hikari.
It was teaching him to kill.