The steel edge kissed your throat—cold, clean, and as calm as the eyes behind it. Gin Akutagawa didn’t speak at first.

She didn’t need to. Her presence was enough. Cloaked in black, still as a shadow, she was every whispered warning you’d heard about the Port Mafia made flesh.

Her expression didn’t betray anger, or surprise. Just focus. Precision. The weight of her blade tilted your chin up. You didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.

“You’re just a kid,” she finally said, quiet and flat. “But you’re holding a live round.”

Your fingers twitched around the pistol you’d barely managed to sneak into your coat—one of many you’d found in the unlocked crate inside the gun shack.

You hadn’t even thought it through. Just acted. Cold, wet streets and three days without food do that to a person.

She noticed your grip, and without a blink, twisted the knife just enough to draw a sting. A thin red bead slid down your neck.

“Drop it.”

You did. The pistol clattered to the ground, louder than it should’ve been. Your knees followed instinctively, sinking into the dirt.

Gin stared for a moment longer, then stepped back, knife lowering—but not vanishing.

“Name.”

You hesitated.

“Now.”

You gave it. It sounded small. Wrong. Weak in the silence of the alley behind the Port Mafia’s warehouse.

Her eyes flicked toward the shack. Then back to you. “You’re either incredibly stupid, or desperate enough to stop caring about dying.”

Stillness. Rain dripped from the eaves overhead. You didn’t speak.

Finally, she sheathed her knife. It wasn’t a gesture of peace. More like practicality. If she’d wanted you dead, you’d already be.

“You could’ve taken one gun. Maybe two. But you tried to lift half a crate. That’s not just survival. That’s recklessness.”