Prologue – The Remaining Heat From The Start

…This is seriously bad.

Feeling the hard ground with his face, he realized he had fallen prone. He was unable to muster any strength from his body, and had lost all sensations from his fingers. He could only feel heat spreading across his body.

—Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!

He kept coughing violently, gurgling even as his life source welled up in his throat, forming foams of blood across his mouth. Through hazy eyes, he saw the floor had been stained scarlet.

—Ah… is all of this… my blood?

As he had mistakenly thought he spilled all of his blood, he stretched a trembling hand towards the burning source of heat. When his fingers felt the torn abdomen, he came to a realization. No wonder he felt a burning sensation, he had mistaken pain for heat. He had a severe laceration — his body was nearly split in half, with only a layer of skin left connecting the two parts.

In other words, he was meeting his “end.”

Acknowledging this, his conscious began to fade quickly.

Suddenly, a black leather shoe rippled the pool of blood that laid before his eyes. Someone was here, and this person was presumably his killer.

But he couldn’t care less about looking at this person’s face.

…His only desire was that she would be safe.

“…baru?”

He thought he heard a silvery, bell-like voice. To hear that voice… to be able to hear that voice… it was his salvation. Then…

“—Ugh!”

A terse cry was heard before the carpet of blood welcomed another person. The body fell beside him, with an arm loosely stretched towards him.

He weakly held onto her limp, snow-white hand with his blood-soaked hand and felt a finger move, as if to return his gesture.

“…ait for me.”

Even at the brink of his conscious, he fought to stay awake.