Ch.224Unforgettable (1)

# Stars in the Vast Dawn

The pink hair flutters through the night air.

Fiercely, as if against the current, and sorrowfully.

She treads forward through the fluttering summer breeze.

“Haa, haa…!”

Lezia was running.

Her eyelids red and hot.

A blurry, vague world crumbling around her.

Perhaps because tears kept welling up, she could hardly see clearly.

Her distinctive green eyes grew watery, and transparent paint gently moistened her cheeks.

Waves churning inside. White foam forming over the bubbling blue turmoil.

A feeling that if she misstepped even for a moment, everything would spill over.

Yet the girl did not hesitate in her steps.

She simply moved forward steadily.

-Miss Lezia.

How could she have forgotten?

The person who had expanded her world.

-I came to find a friend.

The person who always reached out to her when she was alone.

With a tear-stained face, Lezia muttered.

‘Liar.’

After promising to always stay by her side.

How could he make her forget those moments?

He had already become everything in her life.

How could a few words take away her entire world?

The rain fell heavily.

-I loved you too, Miss Lezia.

Now, the girl remembered everything.

A confession whispered so poignantly.

The lips that met afterward.

That sensation was sweet and, at the same time, unbearably sad.

Like a single flower in season, it lived only for a moment.

The thorn that pierced so deeply had now blossomed into the word “love.”

The lingering scent of a distant memory tickled her nose.

‘How cruel…’

He was a cruel person.

Suddenly appearing on her star, becoming her everything, then vanishing without a trace.

She couldn’t let him go now. They had already been tamed by the boy.

The girl’s determination resembled the words the boy used to say habitually.

Her eyes shone clearly even amid the crashing waves.

-Is it called taming?

Responsibility is not borne by one side alone.

They had formed a relationship together.

Therefore, one must strive without placing superiority over the other.

So the girl, and the world, would not permit the boy’s escape.

Just as he had taken responsibility for her from unhappiness, she too had a duty to take responsibility for him from loneliness.

-But Miss Lezia.

-Being among people can be just as lonely.

A world full of people.

Having others close by, yet still being the loneliest star.

So that your dawn wouldn’t be isolated within it.

The stars left behind as footprints come pouring down.

The vivid tail of a meteor, pointing precisely toward the station.

I was running toward the columbarium where you might have leaned.

My back tingled.

[Child of the World.]

Following that, a voice echoed in my ears.

The protagonist’s prayer, repeated so poignantly.

Whether stirred by it or given an answer to it.

At this moment, the world moves according to the protagonist’s determination.

A brilliant radiance envelops her.

[Speak your wish.]

[With the prophet’s disappearance, countless filters remain in causality.]

[The starlight and sunlight that have flowed down will push your back.]

It was the old man’s final confession.

Like a pair of shoes neatly removed.

The causality, twisted to the point of wretchedness, cultivates a righteous miracle.

[What do you desire?]

A resonance that dyes the soul.

The lips answering did not hesitate.

“The world.”

The girl’s eyes shine.

“Give me back… that person, my world.”

Her back tingled.

With tears flowing down, the pronunciation is carefully bitten.

The moments spent by the boy’s side spark like flames.

The loneliness, devotion, sacrifice that would have been his share, and… the one love he would have carefully folded away.

The pilot remembered. The umbrella that had been held over her on a day when a sudden shower poured down.

And the kind, narrowed eyes that had gently looked down at her.

The warmth contained in that gaze.

“Let us protect that person.”

The wish stretched out.

By now, a pure white light was swirling around Lezia.

Perhaps stars had settled there. Or maybe it was the world itself.

The pilot felt the omnipotence circulating throughout her body.

The tightness in her chest loosened, and her toes lifted off the ground.

[Luck does not change life itself.]

[It merely adds wind beside the sailboat.]

[Child, grasp your sword firmly.]

[The world will bestow upon you its most brilliant light.]

[You shall shine before the dawn and confront the primordial night.]

Her back felt as if it were being burned by fire.

Even in such searing pain, Lezia did not falter.

She simply grasped the light. Leaped toward the night.

With the belief that beyond it, her world would be waiting.

The raindrops had ceased on her cheeks.

[Understander of the World.]

The world solemnly declared.

And simultaneously-

[Spread your wings.]

Whoosh-!

Behind the girl’s back, a massive pure white afterimage stretched out.

It was a pair of wings that unfurled with a flash of light.

Between the fluttering wingbeats, the settled night was lifted away.

‘Understander of the World.’

Lezia Pillots.

The protagonist, beyond the original work, had achieved her final awakening.

It was a miracle created by borrowing countless hands.

Tap-!

The pilot lightly struck the ground.

Following the light reverberation, her body flew like an arrow.

The line gliding through the air was focused on only one direction.

To reclaim her world.

***

I once read such a phrase.

Don’t say anything to anyone.

Because once you speak, you start missing everyone.

It didn’t resonate with me at the time, but now I find myself pondering those words.

Perhaps they resembled my current self quite closely.

“……”

The day the demon god had foretold.

The date of calamity approached so suddenly.

I stood on the ruins under the gloomy dawn.

What my feet stumbled upon were debris. The cathedral that had collapsed earlier.

Lies swirled at my fingertips.

‘Is this really the end?’

I recalled my original goal.

My role was to seal or weaken the demon god.

Depending on the situation, I would also aim for mutual destruction.

I calmly organized my thoughts, preparing for the final moment.

‘How strange.’

Normally, I would have muttered some meaningless soliloquy.

For some reason, my lips wouldn’t part.

Perhaps I was afraid I might start missing something.

Or maybe I had already been missing something for a long time.

I swallowed the unspoken remnants.

“…It’s not particularly satisfying.”

Contemplation burning with courage.

Looking up at the sky, it was overcast, with neither starlight nor even the moon visible.

Only a pitch-black background and a vague final curtain awaited.

I stood silently in the darkness within darkness.

Was it a thorn embedded without my knowledge that kept stabbing my heart?

I hoped so.

‘Please.’

I hoped this chest pain wasn’t from my heart.

If it were, I might regret my life.

I gently thought.

‘Like this…’

Like this, if I went a little more insane, I could become the catcher in the rye.

The desire to protect the world, the lingering attachment to remaining childlike, the affection for life…

Emotions that melted unconsciously mixed together in a sticky mess.

Perhaps they had been the same from the beginning.

I wanted to die, but at the same time, I wanted to live.

Swish-!

That’s why I honed darkness at my fingertips.

I gripped the regret that had become a sword until my hand ached.

Not long after, a bizarre resonance was heard.

‘…It’s coming.’

Crack, crack-!

Simultaneously with my thought, the sky shattered like glass.

Blood-red surged through the thick cracks spreading outward.

The light faded with a momentary eclipse.

Only primordial darkness remained in the world.

“……”

And.

A form gradually appearing at the center of that darkness.

It was a mass.

Merely taking the shape of a human.

It seemed like pitch-black shadows mixed together in a sticky mess.

The face without eyes, nose, or mouth was incomparably grotesque.

<……>

Though it had no eyes to speak of, I instinctively knew.

The creature was looking down at my existence.

Standing on the sky.

It sneered and said.

<You didn’t run away. I clearly told you to hide as far away as possible.>

“Amusingly, I mistook the date. I thought you meant to run away until tomorrow.”

<You’re pretending to be composed. Yet your fear and attachment are clearly visible to my eyes…>

“Well, I don’t particularly enjoy being peeped at.”

<Pinocchio. Do you believe your life can prevent the end?>

“Who knows? They say you don’t know until you try.”

<How foolish.>

“I hear that often.”

<This will be the last time.>

“That remains to be seen.”

I simply raised the tip of my sword.

The blade forged from shadows coldly pointed at the sky.

Just facing it seemed to make the difference in power palpable.

A force suppressing all life within a certain radius.

“Haa…”

I was afraid.

However, I shook off any further distracting thoughts with a deep breath.

With a quiet word, I struck the ground.

“I’m coming.”

<Come.>

Boom-!

Following the intense sound of air being torn, my body shot out like a bullet.

In an instant, I had reached right in front of the demon god.

I delivered a slash of the sword.

The demon god calmly raised an arm to block it.

—–!

At the moment of collision, a ringing sound filled the surroundings.

It was a clash that could not be contained by mere worldly sounds.

The exploding output enveloped the night.

“Kuk…!”

Despite it being just a single exchange, the recoil returned throughout my body.

Internal injuries penetrated deeply. Blood spurted from my mouth.

My consciousness momentarily drifted away, but I endured by gritting my teeth.

I still firmly gripped the sword.

<Hooh… quite stinging.>

The mass muttered nonchalantly.

The more it did so, the harder I clenched my teeth.

I raised the tip of my sword.

‘…For their sake too.’

I couldn’t let something like that fall upon the world.

Gathering my breath, I struck the sky again.

Calamity. And the world’s final day.

That dawn was only now beginning to break.