Shizu froze upon seeing the state we were in, the bloodied knife stopped twirling in her hand. 

"Shizu," I said, flicking a glance up at her. "I think this is the Imperial Mage, she said her name is Amelia. Let's bring her back to the city and take her to the doctor Innis took us to when we first arrived at Lunaris."

"..."

"We probably should act quick too, considering how much blood she's losing," I continued. I tried to push Amelia off from on top of me, but couldn't. I was stuck underneath her. "Shizu, help me get her off of me. Be careful though, she's using some physical empowerment magic or something I think. I can't move her on my own."

"..."

"Shizu?" I said, glancing up at her again. "Did you hear me? I need your help."

A shadow casted over her eyes, making it impossible for me to read her expression. 

"Help me get her off," I told Shizu, trying and failing again to push Amelia off on my own. "I can't—"

"—Why is she on top of you?" 

"Huh?"

"I said, why is she lying on top of you?"

"What do you mean, Shizu? I..."

Crap. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

Without warning, Shizu began slowly approaching us with the bloody knife dangling by her side, step by step.

"Listen," I tried to explain the situation slowly and clearly. "Amelia caught me by surprise when we split up to look for her. She lost consciousness from blood loss just then. That's the only reason why she's lying on top of me."

Shizu continued to approach.

"Shizu, are you listening to me?" I asked, my heart accelerating in pace the closer she got.

Shit. How did I miss something so terribly obvious? A normal person would look at this scenario and immediately come to a realisation it was a dire emergency situation, seeing the ghastly abundance of blood seeping out of Amelia's torso. But Shizu wasn't a normal person. 

"Leo...!" I started shouting the other way for help. "Help! We're over here!"

"Ryuji?" Leo rang back to us from the distance in the mist. "Hold on, I'm coming over!"

"Hurry!" I shouted at the direction of Leo's voice. "I..." I turned back to see Shizu only a few steps away. "Shizu, please!" I pleaded desperately. "This isn't what you think it is! You have to believe me!"

But Shizu remained unresponsive to my words.

"Listen to me, Shizu!" I urged. "You promised to always listen to me. I'm telling you to stop!"

Nothing seemed to be getting through to her. It was as though something inside her had snapped, and she could no longer hear me.

In the background, I could hear Leo's footsteps pounding through the damp forest floor towards us, but he was still too far away.

"Shizu!" I screamed at her. "Snap out of it!"

I tried as hard as I could to push up at Amelia's body to get her off, but she didn't budge by even an inch. 

At this rate, I was going to be skewered alongside Amelia and turned into a human kebab. Shit!

Shizu halted directly above us, her bloodied knife looming like a guillotine blade, gleaming in the faint moonlight that filtered through the dense forest canopy.

There was nothing in Shizu's violet eyes — just a blank empty stare, devoid of any semblance of humanity. 

"Shizu, noooooooo--!!"

~x~

FLASHBACK TO 11 YEARS AGO
LIFE BEFORE ISEKAI
XXX's point of view

“Do you know how to use a gun?”

“Gun? What's that?"

The man handed me a black steel object with a rough dark-brown handle and it almost fell from my hand, but he grasped onto my hand hard, keeping the strange object inside my grip.

"This is a gun," he told me.

"Sargis, what are you doing?!" another man burst into the war-torn room, his face horrified as he beheld us.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” the man in front of me scoffed.

“T-this one's way too young!” the other man cried, glancing at me. "She barely looks a day over four-years-old! We've never trained a child soldier that young!"

"This isn't just some child, you fool," Sargis retorted. "This little girl's a prodigy. Her test scores at the orphanage are through the roof."

“Where did they even find her?”

"The nuns dug her out amidst the rubble of a bombing a few years ago. Apparently, she had been laying next to the charred remains of her parents for two weeks. Her parents were humanitarian workers sent from Japan, doctors, I think. In any case, she has no other future ahead of her in this country now, besides to fight in our war."

"S-still...!"

The man standing by the door gazed at us uneasily, but then an explosion rocked a nearby building, causing the entire place to shake. Frantic, the man at the door ran off to attend to the explosion.

“Your hands are too small,” Sargis cursed, removing the gun from my hand. “Here, take this instead.”

He handed me a knife, but it wasn't like the ones I've seen people eat with. It was bigger, sharper, and the blade looked long enough to cut through something much thicker than a steak.

“Still too big for your hands,” Sargis muttered. “But at least you can hold this.”

"Why are you giving this to me?" I glanced around. "Are we finally eating?"

"Listen, bad people are coming after us." 

"Bad people?"

Sargis nodded gravely. "These bad people... they want to kill us."

"K-kill?" I said, feeling frightened by his words. "What should we do then? I don't want to die...!"

"That's why we need to fight back," Sargis said, then firmly held my hands that was holding the knife. "And this knife? This is your only chance at survival, understand?"

"...Okay..."

"Always remember. In this world, it's either kill or be killed. There is no third option, Shizu."

I tightened my grip on the knife, feeling its weight and heft. It felt strangely comforting in my hands. I had seen the horrors of war outside with my own eyes; the shrill of explosions and screams, the nauseating stench of blood and gunpowder, the macabre sight of bodies piled up like leftovers from a slaughterhouse. I didn’t want to end up like them. I didn't want to die.

With this knife, I had a faint glimmer of hope, and the power to protect myself. 

“Come,” Sargis stood up from the ground and gestured at the door. “It's time. Let's go.”

~x~

PRESENT TIME
ISEKAI
Ryuji's point of view

At the last second, I casted a physical shield that covered both Amelia and me. Shizu's blade collided with the shield, sending her flying several feet backwards and crashing onto the muddy forest floor.

As I felt Amelia's physical enhancement magic wearing off, I hastily pushed her aside and rushed over to Shizu to check on her. "Shizu, are you okay...?!"

“Why…”

“What?” I stopped in front of her, staring down at her lying form on the ground.

“Why would you do that, Ryuji?”

“You were about to kill us! If I didn’t stop you, who knows what would had happened.”

“I… would never had hurt you. I was only going to hurt that girl.”

"Well, that's still not okay...! If you kill Amelia, we will be finished! How do you think we would escape the army after killing an Imperial Mage?"

“…”

Shizu stayed quiet, her gaze remaining fixed at the forest floor with disillusioned eyes. Her cloak was stained by the dirt and mud, and her knife lay a few feet away from her.

“Come on, Shizu,” I said, forcing an encouraging smile and offering a hand down to her. “Let’s get you out of there first, okay?”

Shizu didn’t grab my hand, nor did she try to pick herself up from the ground.

"My life before isekai was so terrible, Ryuji..." Shizu muttered. "War, famine, death... Every day was a constant hell. I don't even feel a thing anymore..."

"Shizu..."

"So why is it... that when you hurt me... it h-hurts so much...!"

Tears started rolling down Shizu's eyes, her face scrunching up in pain. 

"I... I didn't mean to hurt you," I said, stunned by Shizu's reaction. "I'm sorry... I-I thought you're so much stronger than me, Shizu... I didn't know the shield I casted would hurt you!"

I didn't know what to do, standing there watching her crying. 

"Hey Shizu..." I said softly, reaching a hand towards her. "It's okay, alrigh--"

Suddenly, Shizu pushed herself off the ground, darting to the side to grab her knife before running past me.

"Shizu! Stop--"

I tried to catch her before she could run past me, but she moved much faster than me.

By the time I turned the other way, Shizu was already holding Amelia’s unconscious body in front of her, with her knife pressed against Amelia's throat.

“Shizu...!" 

"If you like her so much," Shizu said bitterly in-between her tears. "Then I'll kill her right in front of you!"

Oh god, Shizu was going completely insane. But there was no way I could let her kill Amelia. 

"How is that going to solve anything?" I asked, trying desperately to calm her down. "Think logically, Shizu! I'm not trying to save her because I like her. It's just that she's an Imperial Mage, and if we kill her, we'll all be killed in return. Put down the knife first please and let's talk...!"

"No! You're just trying to trick me to run away with this girl!"

"Please, Shizu! Let go of the knife!"

"All I ever wanted was somebody to love me," Shizu sulked, rubbing at her eyes using the back of her fist that was holding the knife. "Even just one person would be enough. If I can't even have that, then what's the point of living?!" 

"I... I--"

At that moment, Leo emerged from the fog at the side and stopped dead in his tracks, glancing between Shizu and I with a bewildered expression.

"W-what the fuck is going on here?" Leo said. "Shizu, why are you..."

He paused when he saw the knife in Shizu's hand, and cursed to himself.

"Shit Ryuji," Leo said, bracing himself with the mace at his back. "I told you this bitch was crazy!"

"No—!" I shouted at Leo, seeing him reach for his mace but it was too late.