I do not own Re:Zero or Oregairu
"So I have this Yin magic?"
He didn't understand why didn't they just call it light and darkness instead Yang and Yin! After an overview of basics of magic, gate and spirits, Puck had checked his.
"Yes, the most basic spell of Yin is Shamak. It takes away all senses except touch."
Emilia (name subject to change) said.
"There are prefixes like Al, Ul, El, that can amplify the effects in certain ways but you don't need to learn them. If the current you tried it, your gate would explode and you would die."
Puck cheerfully told him. Looked like he was still holding a grudge about saying too much to Emilia (name subject to change).
"So Sa-san can use ..."
"Why are you calling me that? Also why suddenly -san? My name is Emilia. Or you can call me Lia like Puck does."
"NO! I am the only one allowed to call you that."
"I am not taking a risk in case Emilia is another fake celebrity name, -san because the witch is sealed but not dead right? I want to make a good impression in case she is watching and -chan might offend her."
"I am not a liar."
Not a good one at least, He thought. Perhaps he should believe her name.
"I don't know if you are too brave or too cowardly to say that about the witch of envy. You are definitely interesting."
Puck giggled. Envy though. Was this like the seven deadly sins or full-metal alchemist world? In that case, there might be as many as seven, or even nine witches depending on the lore of the sins. He definitely needed a library.
"Where is the biggest library in this country?"
"The royal palace library is the biggest that most nobles can access."
"Isn't our library even bigger though?"
"Its not ours, it belongs to Roswaal's mansion and yet Betty doesn't even tolerate his presence too much. Entering it would be really risky for you."
A library at the risk of life twice actually. If he could get her Insignia back, he should have enough debt on her to get there. He was starting to waver if he should only lead her or help her to the end. Everything he had heard about this Roswaal made him think that he was a Gandalf or Dumbledore type character with long white beard.
That was when they found a lost little girl crying and of course the bleeding heart half-elf got distracted. He himself was reminded of the time when his sister had run away from home and he had found her crying in the park. Then he harshly reminded himself that this wasn't his sister, neither the crying girl nor the half-elf.
Emilia tried to console the girl only for her to cry even harder. He considered showing his head-pat expert skill from the 108 filed under onii-chan folder but discarded it. When she looked at his eyes, she immediately stopped crying from fear.
"Are you lost?"
"Mhhm."
"How do you know that?"
"..."
"Were you with mommy or daddy?"
"Mommy"
"Then how do you know that mommy isn't the one who is lost."
"!"
"She could be crying just like this somewhere. Do you think we can find her?"
"Mhhm. I'll find mommy."
"What about daddy?"
"Daddy has appas."
Hachiman shuddered. Was he really following some kind of plot with flags?
They took her to the vendor he had seen before only to be surprisingly successful. It wasn't like he was the only appa vendor in the city. Shopkeeper folded up his shop, thanked them by giving them the information about the blondie quickly before he and his daughter went to look for the mother. He also gave them the remaining apples to avoid carrying the weight around. The location was no surprise as he expected the slums but the knowledge of name Felt was still useful.
"See, it all worked out." 'crunch munch munch'
"Yes, and that girl is now traumatized for her mother. There had to be better ways to do this."
Emilia glared at him. He continued eating the apples.
"Maybe, but this was faster and more efficient."
'munch' Free food always tastes better.
Slums were just like he expected though he hadn't seen them much in Japan. The sun was about to set by the time they found out about old Rom loot house and he was pondering whether to leave her or continue when Puck spoke.
"Looks like my time is up, sorry Lia. I am almost out of mana."
"Its okay. I'll handle the rest."
"Wait, what do you mean time up? What use are you to disappear when you are needed the most. If you had mana shortage, you should have rested instead of playing around all day."
"Its not that. Its about the sun. Anyway, keep Lia safe. Lia, if something happened to you, I'll act according to our contract."
Well that wasn't ominous at all. Puck disintegrated while acting like a dying cat. This was looking like fate wanted him to work with Emilia by taking out powerful spirit from the equation. More importantly, his guilt for delaying her meant that he couldn't abandon her now. He was regretting delaying her this much. He would have kept a buffer of at least an hour before sunset if he knew this about Puck.
The destination was completely dark. The foreboding atmosphere had him on edge, but he was apparently the only one. She casually strolled to open the door before he held her shoulder and dragged her back.
"What do you think you are doing? Can't you see there is something wrong with the situation?"
"I need to enter to get the Insignia back though! Should I make a fire torch?"
"Entering the house of a speedy thief in this complete darkness isn't wise. Wait, can you make a transparent ice sphere appear on the roof in the form of a hole at the exact time I open the door?"
"How will that help?"
"Moon is out tonight, look. A hole will accept that light and the transparent spherical ball will disperse it throughout the room reducing the risk by a lot."
"That would damage the roof of these poor people!"
"They stole from you! Its not a rainy season and we can fix the roof later if you still feel like it after we have dealt with them."
"Why are you risking taking the lead though? You have already repaid me by leading me here."
"The timing of magic needs to be perfect, so I open the door and you cast magic at the same time. Its just logic."
Hachiman walked to the door held out three fingers for countdown, then opened the door immediately at zero. The complete darkness was suddenly illuminated showing blood splatters, two gory dead bodies of a giant old man having glass stuck in throat with eyes popped out of the socket and little Felt cut in two pieces. Then there was a sexy woman standing in the corner holding kukri knife and a face filled with anticipation of her favorite candy.
The woman rushed him at a speed that made him almost lose her from sight but he managed to dodge outside the house. The only reason why he wasn't dead was that she had hesitated, not having expected sudden hole and light to appear from roof of all places. He would have vomited after seeing what was inside if the danger to his life had not appeared.
Emilia realized what happened and immediately started bombarding the vixen with icicles, sharp ones this time allowing him to retreat. The woman seemed to be a close combat specialist so fighting her in a closed space would have put Emilia at a huge disadvantage. Not only would she have to limit her magic power but the vixen would be able maneuver in three dimensions, even now in open space she was running off walls and stuff.
Even when the vixen's foot's sole was frozen, she just broke it off and continued nonchalantly. She was doing some crazy trash talk with Emilia but Hachiman was not paying attention to that. He signaled Emilia towards the roof and then countdown of three again, at the end of which ...
"Shamak"
He lost almost all his senses, he had never felt this helpless. He felt something, some entity in the darkness approaching him before it all passed. He almost collapsed but was heartened to see the vixen frozen in a big block of ice. His plan was simple, take away her senses while Emilia uses a big one, the spherical ball on the roof being her clue. They had won.
"Hikitani-kun"
She came running towards him as he collapsed and held him close.
"You used too much mana without control, your gate has been damaged. You need a specialized healer."
"Heh, how pathetic of me."
"Don't say that! I would not have won without ..."
And his head separated from his body an instant after he heard cracking of ice.
A.N - Guess why the bowel hunter didn't target the bowels.