By Zephyria 
Countless scenes flashed through my mind, but nothing remained in my memory. They simply flowed by quickly, like watching a play.
It was clearly my memory, but most of it was incomprehensible. I would occasionally sneak out of the castle alone and seek out bandit dens. I would get beaten, slashed, and pummeled, then kill them all, but I couldn’t understand why I was doing it.
Why deliberately get hurt? No matter how careless I was, getting stabbed by such a slow blade made no sense.
“……Kyle!”
In a secret chamber shrouded in dark curtains, I discovered a woman stabbed with a candlestick. Tears mixed with blood streamed endlessly from her eyes, and her mouth emitted a mix of unintelligible words and groans.
I drew a dagger from my breast and ended her life, praying,
“May you be born in a world where God does not exist in your next life.”
“Kyle!”
From the excessively bright and utterly blinding darkness, a familiar voice cut through the clamorous screams and muffled silence. Aska appeared as my vision crumbled like a broken eggshell.
I was mentally blank, as if I had just woken up. His lips kept moving, as if he was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear anything. I slowly blinked, staring at Aska’s mouth, and noticed a red mark.
“Kyle!”
I snapped to attention as if splashed with cold water. I frowned and reached out, rubbing Aska’s lips with my thumb.
“Are you hurt?”
“Are you crazy?”
Aska raised his voice, his face on the verge of tears. The sharp shout made my head ache, and I frowned, shaking my head lightly. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that I was awake, it was hard to breathe, and my whole body ached as if I had been trampled for three or four days.
“Cough, cough…”
Coughing up blood…
I tilted my head in confusion. I didn’t cough, did I?
“Cough!”
Aska was coughing beside me, his shoulders shaking. Bright red blood splattered between the fingers covering his mouth.
“What’s wrong?”
I stared blankly at the sight, then snapped out of it and grabbed Aska’s shoulder. He was always pale, but now his face was so pale that it looked almost blue.
“Is it because of your shoulder? Is it because of this?”
The wound on his shoulder, which had only been a hole a moment ago, was bleeding again.
“You said you were okay a minute ago.”
“I’m…”
Aska opened his mouth as if to say something, but no proper sound came out. A strange gurgling sound mixed with the blood rising in his throat.
My body still ached, and my head was still spinning. Still, I knew what I had to do first. I reached for my sword to cut my wrist and let the blood flow, but Aska grabbed my wrist.
I was about to get angry at him for being stubborn, but I stopped. The grip on my wrist was so strong that it was almost breaking my bones, so I relaxed my body and spoke calmly.
“Okay, I won’t, so just breathe.”
I tried to act calmly, ignoring the turmoil inside, but before I could finish speaking, blood flowed from Aska’s eyes. The bright red liquid pooling in his eyes and flowing thickly down his cheeks looked so detached from reality.
“…Why are you doing this?”
“Cough…”
“Poison… Was there poison? The thorns from earlier…”
I racked my brain, trying to find the reason as quickly as possible, when Aska suddenly pulled my wrist down. I bent over and ended up sitting on the floor.
Was he trying to sit down with me because it was hard to stand? I reflexively tried to wrap my other arm around Aska’s shoulder, but I couldn’t. Aska, who had been holding me, suddenly backed away.
Before I could react, a transparent, oval barrier formed around the spot where I was sitting. Unable to understand the sudden situation, I touched the barrier and then punched it.
“What are you doing? What is this?”
Aska watched for a while, as if to make sure I couldn’t get out of here, then turned around. The moment I saw that, my heart dropped.
“Stop.”
Aska’s back flinched, as if he could hear my voice. But he didn’t turn around and kept moving his legs. I opened my mouth, watching Aska’s back getting further and further away.
“I told you to stop.”
“…….”
“If you disappear from my sight, I’ll never forgive you.”
Shouldn’t he turn around at least once after I said that? In the end, Aska didn’t even look at me and took out his wings.
“I don’t know why, but do it in front of me. Take action where I can see you.”
It must be related to Aska suddenly vomiting blood. Was he leaving for a moment to heal his wounds? Was he trying to go back to that lumpy form I saw in my dream? If that was really Aska’s true form, it was possible.
“I told you I don’t care if you’re a Magical creature or whatever. I don’t care what you look like, whether you’re human or a Magical creature. I said it’s okay if you have wings, long nails, or have to crawl on the ground like a worm.”
I punched the barrier, and a dull thud rang out.
“Please don’t do something you’ll regret and get rid of this first. You should die in front of me if you’re going to cough up blood and die, why are you being so stubborn? Have I ever said I hate you because you’re a Magical creature? Why are you imagining things on your own and hurting yourself?”
The more I spoke, the angrier I became. I was sure I could bear it, but I never dreamed he would try to leave me so seriously.
So I said some harsh things, but I would have preferred Aska to get angry. I wanted him to turn around, come to me, and say that wasn’t the case, to say anything, but in the end, his wings began to move.
“Aska.”
I desperately called his name at the sight of his back, which looked like he was about to leave at any moment.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I was too harsh. I was upset. I won’t get angry, so let’s talk. But I really meant it when I said I don’t care what you look like.”
I couldn’t possibly know why he was doing this. But whatever the reason, I couldn’t accept him trying to solve it alone like this.
“Aska!”
I punched the barrier again, looking at the back of his head, which didn’t turn around until the end. But Aska indifferently floated away.
“I’m warning you.”
It was the smallest voice I had ever used. But it seemed to reach Aska’s ears. I glared at his shoulder, which flinched again, and opened my mouth.
“I’ll never forgive you if you go like this. I’m telling you clearly.”
Had my feelings finally reached him? Aska slowly turned his head and looked at me.
The first thing I saw was his pale face and reddened eyes. The blood that soaked his cheeks made it hard to tell if he had cried or not, but his expression made it clear that he was crying.
His face looked so pained that I was momentarily speechless and paused, and Aska disappeared quickly.
“…….”
He got further and further away until he was no more than a speck. I stared blankly at the sky, which was now empty, in disbelief.
“He really left.”
I couldn’t believe it.
He left after I said all that? Without any explanation? Without even telling me to wait? If there was a reason, he could have explained it for a moment. If he couldn’t speak or had trouble speaking, he could have just written it on the floor.
If even that was difficult, I was confident that I could understand him if he just moved his lips in front of me.
But Aska just disappeared. Leaving me in this desolate wasteland teeming with Magical creatures.
“…….”
I couldn’t understand it at all. There must be a reason. He must have had a reason he couldn’t tell me, so he acted like that.
But unlike my rational judgment, my heart was burning with anger. The countless thoughts that couldn’t be organized and the assumptions I made to try to understand Aska were consumed by the flames and gradually disappeared.
I glanced down at the sword.
“…….”
Should I just die?
The thought suddenly occurred to me.
Wouldn’t Aska regret leaving me if I died here? No matter what the problem was, wouldn’t he cry and regret that he should never have done that?
I was so angry that I was losing my mind.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, thinking of such ridiculous things. I couldn’t die just to make Aska angry.
I had to calm down and think about how to get out of here. It must be some kind of magic, so if I couldn’t do anything else, I could just break it with force and get out.
When I got out and found Aska, I would either reapply the Sealing Magic or tear those useless wings apart, or do whatever it took…
That’s when it happened.
A ripple ran through my heart, which had been growing colder and colder. I heard the sound of flapping wings in my ears. I opened my eyes wide and stared at the sky where Aska had disappeared.
I thought I had misheard, but Aska was really coming back. I sighed in relief inwardly. I felt a little better, so I decided to put off the idea of tearing off his wings for now.
“……?”
But as he got closer and closer, something felt strange.