Chapter 6 - The Gang's All Here

Elsa threw the half-broken alcohol bottle and began her true attack. She bounced off the walls, fast enough to see her after images, each time she moved, she picked up speed.

"Fear, true fear. Ah-haha, hope you don't go down too easy now." Elsa's face could only be described as having the manic smile of a murderer. She now began her assault on Wilhelm. With Kukri knives in hand and speed that was similar to teleportation, she attempted to slice cleanly through Wilhelm's guts.

With ease, Wilhelm readjusted his sword and blocked the knife. Elsa leaped back, but before she could even touch the ground, Wilhelm dashed to her and elegantly attempted to strike her before landing. With god-like instinct, she took off her high heels and maneuvered mid-air. Wilhelm's sword struck Elsa's high heels, causing it to stay on his blade. She grabbed onto the stuck heel, to swing down and kick Wilhelm in the back, sending him launching.

"Wilhelm-san!" Subaru shouted. He was worried about the outcome of the fight, but right now he knew something had more priority. Wilhelm could take care of himself, at least for a little bit, but right now the giant Felt was crying over didn't have much time. He ran over to Felt.

"O-Old Man Rom, stick in there. You can't leave me. I won't let that bitch take you away!" Felt was trying to reassure herself, and Rom at the same time. Tears dropped slowly on his body. She clutched her arms, and her teeth were grinding against each other.

Subaru approached Rom and tried to check if his heart was still beating. He put his head on top of Rom's large figure, and even though faint, a heartbeat was heard.

"He's still alive!" Subaru shouted in excitement before a wave of despair hit him. "In this condition, he won't be for much longer." He said in a low tone, despising himself for not being able to do anything once again.

"You came here to help right? Please… save him." Felt begged him to save her only real family. Rom was all Felt as ever known, and even if she were to leave to slums, without Rom, any victory would be bittersweet at best.

Subaru couldn't look at her, he couldn't look at the hope she had in her crimson eyes. Hope could be the ultimate bringer of despair when faced with an unwinnable situation. The will the fight, dream, and continue living all comes from hope. So, seeing it in the eyes of such a young girl, even if he doesn't know her, or even the fact that most of society would want her to disappear off the face of the earth for stealing. He still couldn't look her in the eyes, because if he did, he would realize he had the same expression as her.

"Whoever's out there, I know I said you messed up if you wanted me to become a hero, and I'm sorry for that, but please. Give me anything, anyone, that could fulfill this girl's wish." Subaru did the only thing he could and gave the girl a prayer and a response. "I'm sorry." With that, the girl's face broke. All the hope those eyes once mustered was destroyed and instead filled with despair. She looked down at the giant's body. With tears no longer forming, all that could be seen as a lifeless stare. Usually, Felt would have gone into the battle, to avenge her adopted grandfather's name, but alas, she wasn't stupid. She saw what Elsa did to Rom and the battle that she was currently in. Felt would die if she were too close.

"Whoever you are, please, win this battle," Felt said quietly, watching the battle at hand.

Wilhelm got up from the kick. He slammed through a cabinet full of weaponry, and the walls now had an imprint of his body. "You fight not for honor, pride, defense, or others. Blood is all you wish to see," Wilhelm dusted himself off, and picked up a second sword from the ground. "I have to admit, you are skilled, Bowel Hunter, but you did me a favor by knocking these back. I'm best with two swords. It'll make exterminating you two times faster."

Before Elsa had the chance to respond, Wilhelm slammed his foot to the ground, flipping one piece of wood into the air. He kicked the piece of wood straight at Elsa. Elsa sliced through the piece of wood like nothing, but when the debris faded, she realized there was a sword to the left of her, ready to slice her neck. She instantly bent backward, almost as if she had no backbone at all. Now that she was underneath the sword, she used her foot to kick the sword out of his hands. A loud clang could be heard as she got up and attempted to stab Wilhelm, but he parried with his sword.

What followed was a barrage of attacks from both sides. Every attack would be parried or dodged, moving in sync with one another. It was truly a dance of life and death. Dodge, parry, attack, was the music they were listening to.

"Wonderful, truly wonderful~~ Oh how I would love to see your guts," Elsa's manic smile remained every time she would flirt with death. "It's going to have to wait. After all, patience is the key to victory." With that, Elsa moved an empty barrel in front of her, making it so Wilhelm sliced through the barrel instead. She dashed towards Felt, Kukri knives in hand. "Don't worry little girl, I'll send you to meet him."

Wilhelm was not a fool, and immediately dashed to cancel her attack, but was attacked by a pack of dog-looking creatures that broke in from the window. Drooling from their mouths, and staring at him with beaming red eyes, the dogs attacked Wilhelm before he could intervene.

"Damn beasts!" Wilhelm shouted, trying to slash them away on time, but the numbers were just too many. Flowing in like a waterfall, the dogs just wouldn't stop coming. For each Wilhelm could slice down, three more appeared.

There was only one person left that could stop the knife from being stabbed into Felt. Subaru, or for now, Natsumi Schwarz. He never thought he was the type of person to leap in front of someone that was about to die, but within the short time he was in this fantasy world, a lot about him has changed.

With his worries pushed back, he pushed Felt behind him and covered her. The knife swung with no hesitation, and his guts seemed to be guaranteed to no longer be his, but instead of hearing a slice, and then a dramatic feeling of pain, all he heard was the sound of glass breaking. Subaru was pushed back from the force.

"I don't know what's going on here, but I can't ignore what I'm seeing. Your evil doings shall be stopped!" Lia burst into the beat-up loot house. Nearby was a flying cat that had a small carrier bag.

"I don't particularly want to do this, but if Lia says so," Puck then smiled, and created multiple ice shards. They shot and killed all the monster dogs swiftly, and created some distance between Elsa, and the noncombatants.

"Oh my, a half-elf and a spirit. I haven't seen the guts of a spirit before. How marvelous will it be?" Elsa said. She looked through the broken window as if looking for someone and then frowned. "Somebody has been a bad girl, so I'll need to finish this up quickly." Before Elsa could attempt to attack, she was barraged by a storm of ice shards. Almost as if ignoring gravity, Elsa ran against the walls of the loot house and attempted to get away from the storm of ice shards.

Elsa wasn't expecting Wilhelm to join the frenzy of ice shards. Skillfully, he dodged every single shard and started an onslaught of attacks. Even with bones that could remind someone of a snake, she wasn't able to dodge the sword strikes and the ice shards coming at her.

Wilhelm noticed an area to strike and took his chance. "Thanks for refining an old man like myself, I needed a brush-up." As Wilhelm said that, Elsa was stuck choosing between getting hit by an ice shard, or Wilhelm's sword. Her moment of indecision lead to her getting struck by both the ice shard, and Wilhelm's sword. The ice shards stabbed her thigh, and his cut managed to cause significant blood loss, but since she moved a tiny bit before he cut her, it didn't slice her in half.

While the combatants were fighting Elsa, Lia ran over to Rom. She didn't know if she could help, but gosh darn she would try.

"Lia Is here… I hope she doesn't recognize me. What does she even want anyways? Is she going to harm Felt?" With that, Subaru covered Felt from Lia. She noticed the gesture that Subaru had done, and could feel his hostility towards her.

"Another one, those eyes…" Lia knew she wasn't going to have a good relationship with the people here due to her being a half-elf. So, she tried to be as formal as possible. She found Rom's wound and started healing it. She could tell he was alive but didn't know how much longer he could survive.

"We need to find a more appropriate healer soon. I'm not that advanced, so I can only delay it." Lia tried to avoid using to word death in front of the girl. She feels that it would only harm the situation.

"Old Man Rom is going to be ok?!" Felt pushed Subaru and desperately asked

"Hey! Is that how you're going to treat someone that's trying to help you?" Subaru shouted at Felt for shoving him, but he couldn't stay mad for long. "She is healing him? That took a turn." Subaru wasn't completely sure about Lia, there could be many reasons why healing him would benefit her, so he wasn't sure if he could trust her.

Lia looked at the ongoing fight. "If we can win fast enough." She didn't know anything else to say. Saying anything else would risk Felt crying.

"Old Man, Cat thingy, WIN!" Felt shouted at the two combatants

With her words being heard throughout the room, Puck had a surge of energy and motivation. "When a little girl says it like that, then even my little heart strings can get pulled." With that, Puck unleashed an extravagant attack. He covered Elsa's badly injured body, in an ice trap. The trap froze her body from head to toe. Once she was completely frozen, an ice tree sprouted from the frozen trap, and made an ice explosion. She was completely shattered, and the loot house was destroyed. Puck made an ice shield for Wilhelm, and the noncombatants to make sure everyone was safe.

"I was running out of time anyway, so I just wanted to ensure she was out of the way." Puck then yawned and turned around to Lia. "If you need anything, just make sure to use my od to summon me." Puck then disappeared into thin air.

"W-W-What just happened. She was just here, and now she's gone." Felt was shocked by the outcome of the battle. She wasn't expecting Elsa to get annihilated when she shouted out to them.

Wilhelm walked over to the noncombatants. Now that they weren't in immediate danger, the Old Man got a good look at the giant. "Ah, I never thought we'd meet again after our battle. It's comforting knowing that I'm not the only old warrior around."

"Natsumi-Dono, we need to get him to Felix. He is the best healer in the kingdom. With this young-lady healing him, he should have enough time to live," Wilhelm then turned around to look at Lia. "What may your name be, Miss?"

Emilia was stunned for a second but didn't have much time to think about the question. "Emilia, just Emilia," Emilia said while still focusing on trying to heal Rom to the best of her abilities.

Subaru's eyes widened a bit, realizing that Lia was just a nickname Puck gave her, but in the end, it doesn't matter too much. He was just glad that the situation was over but still wanted to rush Rom over to Felix.

At least, that was before a massive black aura was seen underneath Wilhelm. The aura moved around with no control, and could only be described as enraged.

"Wilhelm-san!" Subaru shouted.

Wilhelm barely had time to dodge the upcoming attack, and as such was slightly sliced on his legs. Elsa busted through the ground and didn't look harmed at all. The only different thing is she no longer had her cape on.

"hahahahaha, the sweet smell of confusion. How lovely it is. It's unfair, isn't it? You only get one life, while I can keep getting up every time I get struck down." Elsa was laughing in joy. She was able to harm the major fighter, and the other one was out of commission "It seems like our playground has opened up?" Elsa commented, noticing the lack of walls due to Puck's explosion.

"You'll regret the day you ever faced me," Wilhelm said in between breaths.

"Well, I can't regret anything if I don't know your name?" Elsa smiled. She likes knowing the names of the guts she gets to see.

"Wilhelm van Astrea," He withstood the pain and readied his sword.

"Elsa Granhiert," With that, their rematch began.

Elsa ruthlessly unleashed attack after attack while Wilhelm was in his weakened state. He didn't have the strength to attempt to attack after she did. All he could do was parry and dodge out of the way. Elsa's endless barrage managed to force him to start fighting on the streets as he kept having to move backward.

"Every slash, every drip of sweat, every moment you lose hope. It just makes the final product better." Elsa licked her lips, almost as if she was looking for her next meal. "Beautiful, you truly are beautiful."

"Damn it! I'm done with this bullshit!" Felt yelled. She picked up a knife and threw it at Elsa. She used her Divine Protection of Wind Swiftness to quickly run across the area and throw any dangerous objects she could at Elsa. She was a girl with a short temper but still wasn't dumb enough to throw her life away just yet. She knew Elsa could stab her without a moment's notice, so she is trying to play the long-distance game to try and bring Elsa down to Wilhelm's current level. So far it seems to be working.

"Hiyaaa!" Wilhelm finally had some chances to strike Elsa while she was blocking, or dodging Felt's attacks. All of his strikes still got parried, but they were back to working grounds.

All of this was happening while Subaru just sat there, doing nothing of use. "Useless, I'm always useless," Subaru said in a low voice that barely anyone could hear. He lowered his head and started a spiral of self-loathing. Before he could continue, he heard a voice.

"Natsumi-san, right? I don't know what happened to you in the past, but you aren't useless! I saw you trying to protect the little girl, and I think that was reaaalllllyyyy brave of you. You are just better at some things than others," Emilia frowned a bit, thinking about herself. "I would know. Sometimes you just have to rely on others to pluck out your mistakes for you."

Subaru giggled a little bit. He truly didn't expect Emilia to be this nice so far, but he just doesn't know if he is cursed when she is around, even if Emilia doesn't mean to. Well, as long as he is Natsumi for now, it's fine to talk to her, right?

"Who even says pluck anymore," Subaru started, as you saw Emilia pout a little bit. "but, the lesson is still there. I think I might know the right thing to help me out." Subaru knew what he was about to do was crazy, and probably wouldn't work, but in a situation like this, anything was worth a try.

He stood up, and from the bottom of his lungs, he shouted "RED! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE, I COULD USE A HAND!"

Everybody took a glance at Subaru but didn't have the time to think much about it.

"You have quite an interesting friend, I'd love to open her guts," Elsa said during the dance of death.

"Try, I'll watch you fail with a smile." Wilhelm grinned, he hadn't known Subaru for too long, but he had a feeling that he had something up his sleeve

Much to Subaru's surprise, a small red spirit descended from the sky. It slowed down its descent when it got to Subaru's eye level. It was almost like it knew him before. Even though right now he was dressed like a girl, and sounded like a girl.

"Good boy! Or uh girl? Thing? Do these things even have a gender?" Subaru started questioning the gender of his not-so-much companion.

"You have a spirit?" Emilia was surprised by this new fact. She had never seen a spirit get too far away from its contractor, especially since this spirit doesn't have a physical form like Puck.

"Wait… that's what they're called?" Subaru turned over to look at the spirit "So, you're a spirit Red? That's sweet as hell! You can be the generic cute thing that anime have just to sell merchandise." Subaru could see that Emilia was visibly confused, and if the spirit had a face, it would show confusion too.

"How does someone not know what a spirit is?" Emilia was still confused

"Well, right now… I'm kind of in a pickle, so can you do me a favor and help out?" Subaru clapped his hands together, lowered his head, and pleaded.

The spirit went up and down, confirming that it was willing to help him out. It started to spin around his head, saying that it was ready to fight.

Subaru grinned, he didn't know how the magic system worked, but that's something for a later date.

As Wilhelm and Elsa were fighting, Felt realized that she was out of stuff to throw at her. Anything that would be worth dodging at least. "Damn it!" Felt said.

The tide of battle was shifting back into Elsa's favor. Wilhelm was put back into a position where you could only parry and dodge. That was until a shout was heard in the distance.

"Fireball!" A crimson fireball was shot directly at Elsa. She barely managed to leap away.

"I thought I was done with spirits for today. If only you didn't yell out your attack, you may have been able to hit me." Elsa showed the rare sign of being slightly annoyed. She wasn't annoyed about him joining the battle, but more by the fact that he wasted such a good opportunity to hit her. "Oh well, I'll keep you in mind now. You earned it, Natsumi."

"Dumbass! I'm not in a cheesy anime, I'm in a life or death situation, why the hell did I have to shout out my attack before I did it? You don't see Puck saying Ultimate ice shard barrage, do you? Why do I never learn…" Subaru snapped out of his thoughts quickly enough. He can't let himself get distracted during this.

"Nii-san, I hear someone coming!" Felt said to Subaru. They were fighting on the streets, and the loot house exploded, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch for someone to appear.

Just as Felt said, 4 men in royal suits wielding swords appeared. Each of the hairs had a primary color, except the leader. He had dark black hair instead.

"We as the royal guard have come to dispel this fight-" During the green-haired knight's proclamation, a ginormous beast dog bursts through a home, killing everyone that was hiding instead of it. Their bodies laying on the floor like mannequins.

The beast snatched two of the guards and crushed every single one of their bones with its sharp, drooling teeth. The guards struggle for mere moments and the beasts prepared to launch them in the air. The beast threw them upwards. They couldn't move, as their blood was splattered into the air as if they were fireworks ready to explode, they lost consciousness. The last thing they saw was them heading towards the mouth of the beast, which swallowed their crushed bodies whole. The blue, and black-haired knights were the only ones standing. The black-haired knight was old and showed visible signs of aging

On top of the beast, was a little girl with purple hair, and a cape. "Come on Elsa, you can't be mad at me. This is my second time helping you~" The girl officially made her dramatic entrance. As she said that, a swarm of dog beasts came out of any cracks between the wood, and houses they could find.

"Shit!' Felt shouted

"You... killed them?!" The blue-haired knight that was left was enraged. The people that died in the house, and his two comrades... all because of a purple-haired girl.

The old knight replied to his cry. "That's what it means to be a knight. They died honorably."

On the other side of the street, Wilhelm's hope continued to decline.

"Tsh." Wilhelm knew their odds of survival were grim. He was just an old skeleton at this point, and he was always told that dying in a fight will always be more honorable than dying in a bed. He looked at Subaru, and Felt. He didn't know much about them, but there has to be someone that cares about them… he lost Theresia, and avenging her is still his goal in life. He can't let others experience the same thing as him.

"Elsa Granhiert, on the will of my sword, and the love of my wife. I will defeat you." Wilhelm paused, and then stared directly into her maniac eyes "and make sure those kids get to see another day!" Wilhelm declared

The ground exploded, pieces of dirt spewing in all different types of directions. He jumped up into the air and launched himself at Elsa. Elsa smiled, and attempted to slice his head clean off, she was inches away from having his head gone, but he grabbed the Kukri knife with his mouth and shattered it. He landed on the ground next to her and swept the ground, causing her to trip. While she was mid-air, Wilhelm kicked her upward, and an audible crack was heard. She lost grip of her knife and dropped it, so he was able to grab it. She tried to land away from him but was hit by fireball mid-air.

"Take that for silent, you vampire bitch!" Subaru shouted. He was waiting for the perfect moment to hit her.

Wilhelm let out a small chuckle and rushed to finish her. He used her knife to stab her burnt body to the ground, and with one clean slice, blood-covered him, and his sword. He casually shook off the blood from his blade.

With one foe gone, at least temporarily, the battle on the other street gained more hope for victory.

"Thetis, guard me while I attack the Mabea-" While the black-haired man tried to order the now named Thetis, a mabeast snuck up behind him and aimed for his neck. The man was aging and didn't have the reaction time to be able to do anything. With his life flashing before his eyes, he was waiting for his demise. Instead, he felt the splatter of blood and an intense wave of wind.

Once he opened his eyes, he saw the cut-up mabeast's body parts laying on the floor, and a yellow-haired girl standing in front of it.

"Of course, the royal guards would be more useless than actual bums. Get yourself up, I won't be watching your back, mine is enough." Felt shined a look that could be best described as pity mixed with disgust.

"Ah~ Felt-chan, haven't you heard of treating someone's pet with care?" Meili pouted at the death of the mabeast. "Oh well, a life for a life would be a fair trade, no~"

"Don't talk as if you know me. Burn in hell." Felt then used her divine protection to quickly stab all the smaller mabeast. "If you bums die, don't blame it on a random mabeast." Felt nonchalantly said to the two guards.

"For such a young girl, you do have a tongue." Thetis quipped back

Meili gripped her small hands in anger at being humiliated by a slum dweller. "I'm tired of this~ Big Doggo, finish them!" The mabeast replied to the demand with a howl that seemed to make the entirety of the slums shudder.

Using its hind legs, it launched towards Felt and the two other royal guards. The crimson red eyes of the Mabeast, and Felt contrasted each other. It tried to crush them as if they were bugs.

"Magnum shield!" Thetis yelled. A magic shield appeared above all of them, protecting them from the attack.

"Ha! So you guys aren't meat sacks after all!" Felt grabbed onto the magic shield and launched herself into the air. She landed on the mabeasts claw and stabbed it with her tiny knife. She ran around the mabeast with her knife still stabbing it, causing blood to spurt out from all directions. She then launched herself up in the air again and landed on the magic shield.

"You're being really annoying Felt-Chan, do me a favor a die already." Meili used her hands to whistle. She waited for something to happen, but her face changed to shock. "What's happening, where are the doggos?" Meili looked around expecting something to happen.

She finally noticed that all of the cracks in the ground, and alleyways have been covered with an ice barrier. All of the backups she brought were stuck, and most likely going crazy.

"Good job Half-Elf Nii-chan!" Felt praised Emilia as she was jumping up and down. Emilia couldn't help with the offense because she was busy with Rom, but she did want to do a little bit.

"It's time for me to shine. I can't let a little girl do all the work. Hans smash!" The black-haired old man, now known as Hans, suddenly doubled in size, and more importantly tripled in muscle volume. The top bodybuilders on earth could barely compare to him. He clashed his fists together, which made a metal sound, and sucker-punched the mabeast in the face. The sheer force instantly separated its head and launched it into the sky.

"TAKE THA- ow ow ow ow." Blood launched out of his nose, and his physical form instantly reverted. All that was left was a passed-out old man.

"You know I was going to compliment you for a second." Felt smugly stated "but, I know a' man that works. So, thanks." Felt mumbled the last part.

The body of the mabeast fell onto the ground, and Meili was launched onto the ground, dirtying her clothes. She was instantly afraid for her life. She attempted to run away with her four legs like an animal but was lifted into the air.

"You're not getting away, you've been a really bad girl," Thetis said with a serious expression.

"You said that in the worst way possible. 0/10 performance." Felt rated his response. Suddenly, Thetis turned around, and stared at Felt in the eyes, Felt started to sweat, and her mind was yelling at her to run, but then he calmly turned back to Meili.

"You're lucky I'm a knight, or I would've killed a murderer like you on the spot." He then pushed Meili to the ground and leaned onto her neck. Her body started to desperately attempt to wiggle out, but the size difference was too massive.

"S-s-top, gget o-ff of me.." Meili tried to get him off her, but he refused to. Thetis gave a look to Felt, but she just turned around.

"Do what you need to, just leave me out of it." Felt walked towards Emilia to check on Rom.

This truly was the end of Meili's life. She always thought she would die in a more fancy way, but this was far from the worst. She could feel his cold, hard stare. Elsa wasn't going to come and save her. Oh well, I guess… she never…. said.

With that, Meili blacked out. Luckily for her, that seemed to be all it took to appease Thetis, as he allowed her to breathe again. He grabbed her by the leg and dragged her across the floor while moving. He went up to Hans and put him on his shoulder. With that, they left the scene with one less criminal in Lugnica and 2 fewer guards. If only Meili had chosen a different path or was discovered by a different person. If only.

Currently, both threats were taken care of, but they were still on the lookout for any enemies. Subaru walked up to Wilhelm to check if he was ok.

"Wilhelm-san, how is your leg?"

"It's seen better days, but Rom needs the healing much more. I'll live." Wilhelm tried to reassure Subaru.

Wilhelm's face flinched with pain, as he started to kneel. He could no longer stand up without support. The blood loss was just too much for him to be able to do anything.

"I'll live my ass!" Subaru tried to support Wilhelm with his arms.

Wilhelm's eyes widened as he saw what Subaru saw just a few moments ago.

"Natsumi-Dono, behind you!" Wilhelm shouted at Subaru, but it was too late. As Subaru turned around, Elsa launched at him. Subaru didn't have the reaction time to do anything.

"This is how I die again, huh?" Subaru thought what he believed to be his last thought.

Before the blade could hit Subaru, a mysterious voice shouted out. "Hyakunin Hitotachi!" A blade of wind hit between Elsa and Subaru, managing to separate them and damage the arm Elsa used to try and attack Subaru.

"Huh?" Subaru said out loud

Two figures ran in front of him and Wilhelm.

"Seems we came here just in time, Subaru-Kyuh." Felix made a cat gesture with his arms; attempting to make fun of Subaru's situation.

"I thought it would be interesting to follow you, but this is a bit much, isn't it?" Crusch then looked back and contrasting what she said, a large, confident smile could be seen.

Next Chapter - Moving on in the World.

Author Notes:

5.1k long chapter! I wasn't expecting this to balloon so big, but it did. I genuinely thought I would finish arc 1 in this chapter, but guess I'll have to wrap it up next chapter. Once again, I think there was a noticeable increase in quality.

I characterized Felt a bit, so I'm wondering if she still came off the same.

Lastly, about the two OCs in this chapter, they won't be that important to the story. All of the OCs that I may introduce in the story will be for more minor roles. So don't worry, no double-eye colored, dragon, vampire, and ninja showing up in the fanfic anytime soon.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the amazing reviews!

Shout out to "alankordel958" on FFN, and "A Passing Bruh" on AO3. You guys are awesome :)

-TonkaDev