19 12

Ranta and Yume had laid some furs out on the floor and were sitting on top of them. Ranta subtly rested his head on Yume’s shoulder, and she didn’t try to shrug him away.
Itsukushima and Poochie were staring up at the statue of Lumiaris.
Haruhiro was clenching and unclenching his fists. He didn’t feel enough discomfort to say it hurt. They felt off, though. Hard to move. He was probably unconsciously limiting his motions.
His body was afraid. Of what? He didn’t know.
“I’ll go take a look,” Haruhiro said.
“By yourself, Haru-kun?”
“I prefer it that way.”
“Oh, okay...”
“I’m heading out.”
“Be careful, y’hear?” Yume looked concerned.
“And make sure you come back,” Ranta added brusquely.
Itsukushima and Poochie watched silently as Haruhiro departed.
Haruhiro left the temple and headed toward West Town. It was a shadowy place. Sunshine hardly ever reached the streets. The ground wasn’t just wet because of the rain and dew. It had been left constantly moist from all the human and bird excrement it had absorbed. There was no escaping the stench. He’d become inured to it with time, but visiting again now, after so long, he wanted to tear off his own nose. To think, Haruhiro had once been able to breathe normally in a place that reeked so badly. He sometimes spotted cockroaches squirming in the dark, but aside from that, there didn’t seem to be so much as a single mouse.
Continuing down a specific back alley, he came to a short iron door. The keyhole had a crest like the palm of a hand carved around it.
Haruhiro crouched down and pressed his right hand to the crest. He pushed until his wrist hurt. Doing this sent a signal to the inside. He waited, but there was no response.
Haruhiro sat down with his back to the door.
After some time, he stood up and pushed on the crest again.
He repeated this process four times. Still, nothing happened.
“Eliza-san!” Haruhiro called out a woman’s name. She had speaking tubes that would pick up any sound in this alley. Not that he thought it would help. And, as expected, he received no response. It looked like the thieves’ guild was deserted too.
Haruhiro left West Town and headed toward the southern district. There were a number of long, thin sekaishu intermingling as they crawled through the blind alleys of the craftsmen’s town. There used to be blacksmiths here who had done a lot of work for the volunteer soldiers. There’d been clothiers too. And masons and carpenters. But their workshops had all been completely looted and destroyed, making it hard to reminisce about better times. There had been food stalls near the craftsmen’s town too. Haruhiro and the party had been regular visitors. One place had served a noodle dish called soruzo. It had a salty broth with meat and yellow noodles. Moguzo had been a big fan. Now there was a dark, black sekaishu lying in the spot where the soruzo place had once been.
Haruhiro dropped by the volunteer soldiers’ lodging house. The rooms had changed little, even after all this time, but that evoked strangely little emotion in him. He said Manato and Moguzo’s names, but his heart didn’t feel even a twinge of pain.
There had once been a wall clock in the entrance hall. Now there was nothing.
I used to check the time here, right? Haruhiro thought.
Back when he had lived in the lodging house, he had made use of the clock often.
“I wonder what’s gotten into me.”
Time. I need time. It was the same after what happened to Manato and Moguzo, right? I’ll just have to suck it up for a while.
He’d had this thought before. Time. He needed time. The same thought, perhaps even the same words. Back then, he’d thought he couldn’t endure the things that had happened, couldn’t keep going anymore. That was why he’d wanted to end it.
But ending it myself is too much effort.
What was Haruhiro doing now? Going with the flow.
Things can only turn out however they’re going to turn out. Let what’s gonna happen happen.
Haruhiro left the lodging house. He still had time before sunset.
Heading north, he found himself walking past the spot where the Yorozu Deposit Company had been, when he suddenly came to a stop.
“It’s gone...”
Well, to be precise, there was still a pile of rubble. There was a warehouse in there somewhere, solid as a rock. He recalled that Jin Mogis’s men had been guarding the place. He didn’t really know what had been inside. Probably the gold and valuables that the volunteer soldiers had deposited with the company.
The deposit company. Yorozu. Come to think of it, what had become of her? He felt like it had been a while since he’d thought about whether someone else was safe.
Why had Haruhiro come here, anyway? He’d checked on it some time before, at Shinohara’s request. Maybe there was something about that request that was nagging at him.
“What’s it matter?”
He didn’t know. It just bothered him somehow.
“Why would it bother me...?”
His head felt incredibly heavy. This was too much trouble. He didn’t want to think about anything. And he didn’t have to. If he stayed indifferent to it all, his head wouldn’t feel heavy, nor would his heart, and this lethargy afflicting his whole body would probably go away.
Haruhiro tried to look up to the sky. He couldn’t bring himself to tilt his face upward, try as he might. He just turned his eyes instead. The sky was low.
Time? Do I need time? How many days? How many months? A year? Two years? More?
Haruhiro started walking.
He submerged himself.
Stealth.
“Die,” Barbara had said with a smile.
“You’ve got to die, Old Cat.”
Stealth was composed of what could broadly be categorized as three different techniques:
The first, to eliminate your presence—Hide.
The second, to move with your presence eliminated—Swing.
The third, to utilize all of your senses to detect the presences of others—Sense.
“Become a corpse.”
She’d roughed him up good.
“If you can’t do it yourself, I’ll help.”
She’d broken his fingers, collarbone, and ribs. It had hurt so badly he hadn’t been able to breathe, and then she’d ordered him to die.
She was kind of awful.
Besides, what’d she call me Old Cat for?
“Because you’ve got the eyes of an old cat.”
Barbara had been torn apart and killed. Or had she been killed and then torn apart? They’d been carrying her arms and legs around on spears. Her torso had been chopped into two or three pieces with the entrails hanging out.
Part of the corpse had been lying at his feet. Just her head. Her right eye had been closed, her left eye slightly open, though it hadn’t been looking at anything in particular, obviously. Her right cheek had been pressed to the cobbles with her whole face sagging to that side. Her face had borne several cuts. It had been filthy with blood too.
He remembered it vividly. It didn’t hurt. Barbara-sensei was dead. Haruhiro had seen her body for himself. The facts were what they were, and that was it.
“Old Cat. Here’s the thing. You’ve got a wide perspective, and you don’t scare easily. Your thinking’s only average, though. You don’t overestimate yourself, and you’ve got the stubbornness to work through things a little at a time.”
Haruhiro had been her humble pupil. But Barbara-sensei had misjudged him. His perspective was narrow, and he wasn’t as unshakable as she’d thought. His thinking was slower than average. He didn’t overestimate himself because he had no expectations for himself whatsoever. Haruhiro wasn’t stubborn.
“You’re not the type who can do things if he tries. You’re the type that tries until he can do things. That’s why, right now, it’s good that there are things you can’t do. Because someday you’re going to be able to do them.”
He didn’t need consolation. Words of encouragement wouldn’t make him rise to the occasion. Barbara-sensei was dead. The dead offered no consolation. No encouragement either.
Kuzaku and Setora had died too. They were supposed to be dead now, but they had gotten back up. Merry’s work.
No. That wasn’t Merry.
Merry was dead.
He’d brought her back.
No. She hadn’t come back.
She’d been turned into someone else. Not Merry. The No-Life King.
“I love you,” Merry had said.
They’d held one another. Kissed. Had that not been Merry either?
“Haru. I love you. Don’t let go of me.”
Don’t let go of me. She’d said that clearly. That wasn’t Merry? Really? That wasn’t her will? Just someone else borrowing her body to make it say that? Did he really think that? What about Kuzaku? Or Setora? Was Merry not inside the No-Life King anymore? Would he never be able to speak to her again?
“Don’t let go of me.”
Had Haruhiro already let her go? They’d been separated. Merry wasn’t here. That was a fact. He wasn’t supposed to let her go. Hadn’t wanted to let her go. But he had. He shouldn’t have abandoned her. Shouldn’t have run away. He wanted to be with her. He shouldn’t have left her alone. He needed to be by her side, no matter what. He wanted to be with her forever.
Was it too late now? Really? He’d really never be able to speak to her again? Never see her face? Never hear her voice? Wasn’t Merry still out there, somewhere? Wasn’t she inside the No-Life King, crying and screaming?
Don’t let go of me. Don’t leave me alone. Haru. Don’t let go of me.
No. Haruhiro knew. This was Merry, after all. She was probably wishing for something like this instead:
It’s okay. I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me. I want you to forget me. Tell yourself I’m not here anymore. Act as if I never existed to begin with. Stay away from where I am.
That’s why Haruhiro shouldn’t have let go of her. That same Merry had told him not to let her go. She’d realized that there was something unfathomable inside her. She’d sensed it. She had to have been afraid that it would take over and replace her at some point. Considering what Merry was like, she must have worried about it a lot.
Should she push Haruhiro and her other comrades away? Would it be better to just disappear? But they’d be in trouble without a priest. She couldn’t do that to them.
It was possible that she had been plagued by thoughts like those. She must have felt lonely. Maybe she had desperately wanted to avoid being alone? Maybe she couldn’t be alone.
Merry had told Haruhiro not to let her go, as if clinging to him. Her situation must have been pretty bad.
What should I do? What can I do? Is there even any way for someone like me to fix this?
If he called out to Merry and said, I’m here for you, it wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t hear his voice.
What if Kuzaku and Setora had turned into something unrecognizable when he met them again?
“...I’m glad.”
Suddenly, the memory of a conversation he’d had with Shihoru in Darunggar came back to him.
“That you’re...our leader. Our comrade. ...And friend.”
What was there to be glad about?
Nothing.
“Haruhiro-kun...”
He could see Shihoru’s perfect smile in his mind like she was right there in front of him.
“You’re the best leader we could ask for... You know that?”
He wished he could be. This wouldn’t have happened if Haruhiro really had been the best leader.
What was Shihoru doing now? Was she inside the Forbidden Tower? The whole hill was buried under the sekaishu, tower and all. Was she okay? Either way, she’d forgotten Haruhiro. She didn’t remember the days when she’d been one of his precious comrades.
Maybe that’s for the best?
Shihoru had also forgotten the deep pain of losing someone. That wound had vanished entirely for her.
It’s fine, isn’t it?
It’s fine. Just fine.
No. If he truly was fine with it, his thoughts wouldn’t have kept going back to her.
Haruhiro had let go of Merry. Why had he done that? How could he have? It had been a mistake. He’d made a huge mistake. One he could never take back. There was no returning to the past. No way to make up for it.
I’m pathetic. A disgrace. Completely wretched. I’ve gotta be able to make some kind of decision about this, at least.
If he was going to move forward, he should move forward. If he was going to stop, he should stay put. If he wanted to run away, then he just had to turn tail and flee.
What do I want to do? Nothing, because I can’t do anything? Well, then I’m being awfully indecisive about it. Do I want someone to give me a push? I’ve got people who’ll support me, right? Do I want them to tell me how to do every little thing? To order me around, saying do this or do that?
“You’re not the type who can do things if he tries...” Barbara-sensei had actually had a good read on him. Had he ever thought, I can do this if I try?
“You’re the type that tries until he can do things.”
He’d had no other choice. Since there was almost nothing he could do, he’d had to try until he could at least do something. Always grasping for a solution.
Looking up at the cruelly beautiful stars above the Quickwind Plains, Itsukushima had said, “I’m alive.”
He’d lived for much longer than Haruhiro. As an experienced hunter, he must have met a lot of people, and said goodbye to them too. The only foundation that man had to stand on was the knowledge that he had managed to survive this long.
Alive.
Still alive.
Living.
Just living.
Living, and living, and living.
“I’m...alive too.” He felt guilty about it.
Manato.
Moguzo.
Barbara-sensei.
And all the other people he could never see again.
“I’m still alive.”
Haruhiro headed toward the plaza in front of Tenboro Tower. There were more of the sekaishu here than anywhere else. In some places, a thick river of sekaishu ran down the middle of the street, while in others, several thin sekaishu pipes crawled along the side of the road. The pipe-like sekaishu cut across the street occasionally too. Every path had at least some of them.
Were they moving toward the plaza, or away from it? Were they stretching from the plaza out toward the other parts of Alterna?
He spotted the bodies of fallen soldiers. One was lying face down on the road. Another was curled up by the side of it. They were rotting. He didn’t see any sign of wounds taken in combat. But a number of the corpses were still under the sekaishu now. Had they been enveloped by it and suffocated? Or had they been crushed to death?
Haruhiro climbed up on top of a building, then started moving from one rooftop to the next, toward the plaza. It was in sight now.
Haruhiro hid in the shadow of the brick chimney of a two-story building that overlooked the plaza. His breath had become a bit labored. He took a moment to steady it and wait for his pulse to return to normal.
Haruhiro stepped out of the shadow he was hiding in. He leaned his upper body forward, moving ahead with a low posture, and stopping at the edge of the tiled roof.
The plaza wasn’t completely full of sekaishu. Their pitch-black forms only covered a third, no, about a fourth of its total area. There had been a black flood, but it was settling down. The dark water was finally receding. That was how the situation looked to him.
Near the center of the plaza, the sekaishu had formed a jet-black coil. It was more than a hundred meters from Haruhiro’s location, and he’d been so distracted by the other sekaishu that he hadn’t noticed it until he’d squinted at it.
There was something on top of the coil. Or maybe someone? What was that? It looked whitish. Could it have been a human? If so, they had to be dead. It could have been a human body. A corpse, standing atop a jet-black coil? It didn’t look like it was lying down. Maybe it was kneeling.
White. Were those clothes? Was that corpse wearing whitish clothes? Or was it wearing nothing at all? Was it a naked corpse? It didn’t seem to be dressed, but it did have something in its hands. Something shining with a dull luster. One in each hand. Could those be weapons? Swords? Or maybe one was a shield?
The wind was picking up. Though there were no clouds blocking the sun as it set in the west, the sky was becoming overcast too. The wind was cold and moist. It might rain once night fell.
A bell rang faintly, its tone deep and heavy, making Haruhiro look toward the bell tower in East Town. The bells in Alterna used to ring every two hours from six o’clock in the morning until six o’clock at night to tell the time. Had someone just rung them? No, that couldn’t be it. Had something struck one of the bells? Or was it swaying in the wind?
Haruhiro looked back at the jet-black coil. And the corpse. He thought it was a human corpse. A naked body with a sword and shield that gave off a dull light.
Something was strange about this. Unbelievably so, to be honest, and he felt deeply suspicious. There were no living people in Alterna. Hopefully, she’d evacuated or been able to escape, because Eliza hadn’t been at the thieves’ guild. The soldiers of the expeditionary force were all dead and rotting.
Was that a corpse? It was well over a hundred meters away. All he could make out was the color and general shape of it. He couldn’t see it in detail, but it was probably a man with his head hung, facing the other direction. A human male. Not living. Carrying a sword and shield.
Something was wrong. The sekaishu, that jet-black coil, was moving. When did that happen? It had been stationary before. Inactive. Or had he just been too far away to detect its subtle movements? Whatever the case, it was winding now. What was the sekaishu doing with that corpse, the human one, the naked male he assumed was dead? He didn’t know, but the body was gradually being taken into the sekaishu.
What had it been doing on top of the jet-black coil in the first place? If that was a human corpse, it was hard to imagine that he’d climbed on top of that coiled sekaishu of his own accord. No, it was unthinkable.
A man had died. He was naked, carrying a sword and shield. Had something happened that had caused the man’s corpse to coincidentally end up on top of the sekaishu? Was that even possible?
This was all assuming that it was just a corpse. What if it wasn’t?
The sekaishu started to adhere to the surface of the man’s body. It was trying to cover him up. The man was naked, but he was being clad in a sekaishu as dark as the night. Why didn’t the sekaishu try to cover his sword and shield too?
Were the sword and shield shining in the light of the sunset? The sun wasn’t high. It was already sinking. The sunlight, red as if it was about to burn out, didn’t reach the man, so it wasn’t that his sword and shield were reflecting its light. The man’s sword and shield had to be shining on their own, even if their light wasn’t especially powerful.
The head of the man clad in the darkness of night had been hanging. Until now, that was.
The night-clad one raised its head.
Did this mean he hadn’t been dead? He wasn’t a corpse. Was the man alive? Or was it because of the sekaishu? The night-like sekaishu covering his entire body was moving. Was that what was making it look like the man—no, the night-clad one—was moving on his own?
The night-clad one rose. The coiled sekaishu beneath it was lifting it up, and simultaneously changing its own form. It was no longer just a pedestal for the night-clad one. It now served as a mount. The nightclad one wasn’t standing on it. They were riding it. The sekaishu had formed into a four-legged beast, like a horse, and was now carrying the night-clad one.
Haruhiro backed away.
What?
What is that?
What the hell is that?
Haruhiro’s pulse was racing. He was losing his head. Right. He was shaken. That thing was bizarre. Unlike any sekaishu he’d seen so far. It was blatantly different. What was that thing?
There was someone inside it. With a shining sword and shield. What were they? Not just some random sword. Not just some simple shield. That was a special sword. A special shield. Like a relic, maybe? A relic. Oh, yeah. Were they that sword and shield?
The night-clad one looked toward him. Its black horse turned its head in his direction too. No, that was no horse. It was headless. It had nothing where its head should be. Its legs were like a spider’s, only it had less of them.
Haruhiro was crouched low, not moving a muscle at this point. Was he managing to maintain his Stealth? He wasn’t sure. But that thing was over a hundred meters away. It wouldn’t be able to spot him easily. Besides, could the night-clad one even see? Did it have five senses, like a human? Was the human inside the night-clad one alive? Or was he dead?
Haruhiro was shaken. He needed to calm down. He knew that, but he still couldn’t do it. He wasn’t calm enough to be able to calm down.
The night-clad one turned toward him but didn’t stir.
Relics.
Shinohara had been carrying a relic sword and shield.
Time to run.
Why did Haruhiro come to that conclusion? He couldn’t be sure. His body might have moved before he finished thinking. Haruhiro turned, preparing to do an about face and run away.
“Kh...!”
He didn’t anticipate that a night-clad one would be there. On the same roof as him. On the chimney, rather. A night-clad one was standing on the chimney. Not the same one as in the plaza. This one wore sparkling gold armor and a crown, and carried a staff. It was a second night-clad one.
Haruhiro ran. The night-clad one didn’t jump down from the chimney. It jumped up. And floated. The night-clad one was floating silently in the air. Haruhiro was distracted by the unnatural way it moved. It made no sense to him. Even as he wondered what the hell these things were, he was running across the slanted tiles of the roof. Haruhiro didn’t jump across to the next building, but down into the gap between them. In other words, he fell. As he plunged toward the ground, he kicked off the neighboring building. That immediately turned him around, and he grabbed on to an indentation in the building he’d jumped from. Pain shot through his wrists, but that wasn’t the reason he let go. He dropped intentionally and landed in the alley. Looking up, he saw only the sky between the roofs, no night-clad one. Haruhiro raced down the alleyway, which was just wide enough for one person to barely pass through, until he reached the road. The night-clad one was in the air above the street. It seemed to be lying in wait for Haruhiro.
The night-clad one turned their staff toward Haruhiro. That wasn’t just any old staff. The same went for the armor and crown. Haruhiro had finally started to figure it out. Relics. The night-clad ones had relics. They were sekaishu humans who used relics.
Haruhiro sprinted away. The night-clad one’s staff flashed like lightning. He didn’t even think about trying to dodge. That staff had to be a relic. But what kind? He didn’t know anything about it. How could he possibly know if it could be dodged?
He’d managed to dive into another alleyway for now, so it looked like that light had missed him. He ran down the alley, breathing heavily, but when he exited the other side, the night-clad one was floating in the air above him again.
“Ugh...”
Haruhiro turned back down the alley. The staff. The staff’s light was coming after him. With a flash, it tore a chunk out of the face of the building, burning and scorching the stone. If it landed a solid hit on him, he was screwed. He didn’t stand a chance. There was a little window in the wall of the building on his right. Once he’d torn off the shutters and forced his way through it, he found himself in what looked like a kitchen.
I want to hide here. That was what he felt from the bottom of his heart, but he heard a noise. The night-clad one might have entered the building. He exited the kitchen into a hallway. There were stairs.
Haruhiro raced up them, coming to a room on the second floor. Through a window, he could see the roof of the one-story building next to this one, so he jumped out onto it, and from there to the next roof, looking all around as he ran.
What about the night-clad one? Where was it? And what about the other one? The one with the shadow spider? Was that one still in the plaza? Or was it chasing Haruhiro too? Had it joined the search for him? Where was the night-clad one with the staff? He didn’t know. He couldn’t see it anywhere. But even if he couldn’t see it, he knew it was there. Probably closing in on him.
Haruhiro had entered the southern district at some point. He couldn’t see either night-clad one. Heading down to street level, he spotted a sekaishu thrashing about on the side of the road. It was jumping up and down, writhing. But Haruhiro didn’t even think about stopping. He didn’t have time. He saw a figure of some sort up ahead. Humanoid. Black. A shadow? A black human figure? What was that? Haruhiro turned right and went around a corner. If he’d gone straight, he’d have been heading right for that black figure. He had a feeling that wouldn’t have been good for him.
The sekaishu were going wild in the direction he’d turned too, with several tube-shaped ones flopping about violently. The street couldn’t have been even two meters wide. The tube-shaped sekaishu lashed the ground like whips. Each time they did, they got thicker or thinner. Haruhiro couldn’t slip between them. He had to wait for the tube-shaped sekaishu to lower themselves to a height of twenty or thirty centimeters, then try to leap over them.
His left foot got caught.
“Urgh...!”
At that very moment, the sekaishu broke at the point where Haruhiro’s left foot had hit it. No, that wasn’t quite right. It hadn’t broken. It rapidly expanded, and a black figure jumped out. Born from the sekaishu. A sekaishu human. Haruhiro nearly fell on his face. The sekaishu human sprang at him. A human. It had the shape of a man, but no head. Haruhiro reflexively planted a kick on his attacker and then booked it out of there. The tube-shaped forms swung about furiously, while the human forms chased after him. There were horrible slamming sounds behind him, but Haruhiro didn’t turn to look. It took everything he had just to avoid the tubeshaped sekaishu and keep moving forward.
When he finally made it to a wider road, he saw the Volunteer Soldier Corps office on his left. The old flag with a red crescent moon on a white field was gone now, but the sign that said Alterna Frontier Army Volunteer Soldier Corps Red Moon was still there. Haruhiro ran toward the office. All around him, the tube-shaped sekaishu were thrashing. He looked back for a second, and he saw them. The sekaishu humans. Not just one. There were more now. Lots of them. Chasing Haruhiro.
Something flashed overhead, and Haruhiro jumped to the side. It was the night-clad one’s staff. There was a loud crack as it burned and scorched the ground. Haruhiro’s vision spun as he rolled and tried to get back up. The sekaishu humans weren’t his only problem. The other one was here too, in the group chasing him. The night-clad one riding the shadow spider and carrying the shining sword and shield. He could see the night-clad one with the staff floating up in the evening sky too. Their staff was pointed toward him.
There was another flash as Haruhiro was about to pass by the Volunteer Soldier Corps office. Someone poked their head out of the gap between it and the next building. Someone? A person? Yes, it was an honest-to-goodness human being. Long-haired, with a scarf covering the lower half of her face. She didn’t speak. Just gestured to him. It was probably at the same exact moment that the night-clad one’s staff unleashed its light. Haruhiro slipped into the gap between the buildings. A tight fit. He had to turn sideways to get through. The woman was already well ahead of him, and then suddenly, she was gone. Vanished.
“Whaaa?!”
More and more sekaishu humans were pressing into the gap. Almost panicking, Haruhiro kept moving toward where the woman had disappeared. A hole. There was a hole in the side of the building. No, an entrance, huh? It was small. He wasn’t sure he could get in even if he crouched. This wasn’t the time to hesitate, though. Haruhiro managed to crawl through somehow. It was almost pitch black inside, and it smelled of mold. This room was apparently in the Volunteer Soldier Corps office, but he didn’t know anything about it. He’d never been in here.
“Come on, over here,” the woman said.
As he headed toward her voice, he banged into a wall. She seized his left arm and pulled him along. Haruhiro didn’t resist. It sounded like she’d opened a door. It was dark on the other side of it too. They went through a small room or a short hall, and then she opened another door. Haruhiro felt her let go of his arm. She was doing something. Trying to lift some heavy object, apparently. But Haruhiro didn’t have time to help before she managed to get it up. His eyes were adapting to the darkness. The floor, huh? There was a hole in the floor. It had been covered. She’d opened the lid on it.
“You go down first.”
Haruhiro was already slipping into the hole before she could give the order. There was an iron ladder inside, but no light whatsoever. Once he was a few rungs down, he could no longer see anything. That didn’t stop him from continuing, though. He heard the lid closing above him. And as for the woman? It sounded like everything was fine with her. She was climbing down too.
He took the ladder down as far as he could. It was moist here, and there was an indescribable stench filling the air. If he kept clinging to the ladder, he’d be in her way, so he moved away from it, but he couldn’t bring himself to go any farther than that. Eventually, she made her way down. She grabbed Haruhiro’s left arm again. Then she grabbed his right arm too. He couldn’t see her, but they were facing one another. Because of the scarf covering her nose and mouth, he could barely even sense her breath. He just felt her warmth, the slight sensation of her body heat in the darkness.
“You okay?” she asked.
“

Chapter end