Thud!
Midir's headless body crashed to the ground.
The creature stood nearly three meters tall.
Leila had leapt high to deliver that killing blow to its head.
And so, with her abdomen already skewered, she tumbled across the ground from the impact.
Naturally, her body didn't come through that unscathed.
The claws buried deep in her gut tore sideways with a sickening crunch.
White bone gleamed through the shredded flesh of her flank.
Blood poured from Leila's fallen body without pause.
The scent of it cut through the acrid smoke — thick, pulsing, unmistakable.
She lay motionless in the pool she had made of herself.
"Leila!"
Yujin rushed to her and checked her condition.
Perhaps it was the resilience of a Valkyrie — so much tougher than any ordinary human.
Despite wounds that were unambiguously critical, she was still breathing.
But left like this, even that stubbornness would mean nothing.
Something had to be done if she was going to survive.
Yet there was nothing he could do — he had no special abilities.
He tried at least to stanch the blood flowing from her side.
No matter how hard he pressed, it kept coming.
*If Promina were here, she could at least do something for emergency treatment….*
Yujin forced himself to think rationally.
Promina, with her healing abilities, might have a way.
But Promina lay collapsed in the distance, showing no sign of movement.
Then was he truly going to lose her right in front of his eyes?
Yujin kept turning the problem over, searching desperately for an answer.
She had saved his life three times.
Then at least once, he had to repay that debt.
He had to think. He had to find some way to save her….
But no matter how hard he thought, there was no way for Leila to survive.
It felt like falling into a pit too deep to climb out of.
His breathing had grown ragged when Leila's faint voice reached his ear.
"Com… mander…. Ugh."
In an instant.
Yujin pulled her into his arms without thinking.
In that moment, he couldn't reduce what he felt to a single word.
Guilt, regret, sorrow — all of it churned together into something dense and formless.
He bit down hard on his lip and spoke to her, almost pleading.
"Why… you could have won without doing this…!"
That much was undeniably true.
He had watched Leila fight Midir in the cave.
He had believed she had more than enough of a chance without resorting to mutual destruction.
She was wiser and more dependable in a fight than anyone he knew.
Throwing her life away like this… it was far too reckless a plan.
Perhaps she understood, at least roughly, what he meant.
Leila blinked slowly and answered with a faint smile.
"Heh… you're right…. There probably was… a safer way to win…."
"…."
"But I couldn't help it…. You looked like you were in danger, and my body just moved on its own…. Heheh… I'm such an idiot."
"Ugh…."
A dull ache.
Her words made his heart drop.
Leila was so kind. She hadn't meant it that way at all.
But to him, her words felt like an accusation.
"I'm sorry…. If I hadn't been there…!"
Leila wasn't someone who should die here, like this, for nothing.
She should have gone on saving more people, being loved by the Valkyries.
She was supposed to be a light brightening the future ahead.
And yet he had gotten her killed — his benefactor, his friend.
That realization made it impossible for Yujin to breathe properly.
But she seemed to disagree.
Leila spoke gently, as if trying to soothe him.
"That's not… how it is…. Commander, you didn't do anything wrong…. I was simply not capable enough…."
"No. If I hadn't been in the way, you would have…!"
"Hff…."
Leila let out a small sigh and furrowed her brow ever so slightly.
*Good thing he can't see my face.*
She refocused herself on the performance and whispered softly against his ear.
"What's done is done."
"Ugh…."
"Commander… I want to see your face."
Holding each other like this, of course, meant neither could see the other.
Leila weakly pushed against the Commander's shoulder.
Yujin, who had been holding her tight, slowly loosened his grip.
Not far away, the wildfire still blazed.
Its amber light was more than enough to illuminate them both.
Leila shifted her position and swallowed involuntarily.
*Gulp.*
Her eyes were brighter than they had ever been.
Like a child tearing open the packaging of a long-awaited game console.
Without realizing it, she was slowly rubbing her thighs together.
And then, at last, their eyes met.
The restless movement of Leila's thighs went still.
Her eyebrows trembled — barely perceptibly.
"Oh…. Commander…?"
"Is something wrong with my face?"
"N-no…. It's not that…."
Yujin's face was one of emotion held under brutal restraint.
He didn't want to worry her when she was dying.
He was forcing everything down, burying it as deep as it would go.
He could feel that if even a little of it slipped out, he wouldn't be able to contain the rest.
Leila pressed her toes into the ground without thinking.
Then she looked down, turning something over in her mind.
And then, her voice trembling faintly, she reached back into a painful past.
"I… really hate watching someone die in front of me."
"…."
"When I was little, I lost everyone — my family, my friends…. So losing someone terrifies me…. I'm so scared, so scared, so scared that… I ended up like this…."
"That's…."
"So… I don't blame you at all, Commander. Not even a little. If anything, I'm so relieved that you're alive…."
Even covered in blood, Leila smiled.
The corners of her mouth trembled — the pain was clearly becoming harder to bear.
But even so, Yujin could feel her nobility in it.
A glance. His eyes met Leila's, watching him.
Her expression was complicated — difficult to read in every sense.
*What is she thinking?* His expression darkened.
How much time did they have left to speak?
Leila looked up at the sky and murmured softly.
"Still… I can't say I have no regrets…. There were so many things I wanted to do."
"Like… what?"
"I wanted to go to an amusement park. And an aquarium…. See a concert…. Oh, and I wanted to have a cat."
"Leila with a cat… I think that would suit you."
If anything, Leila was more like a dog.
Which was exactly why a cat seemed like the right contrast.
For a conversation happening at the edge of death, it was remarkably peaceful.
Leila rested her small head against Yujin's shoulder, hiding her face from view.
Then, very quietly, in a voice almost too shy to hear, she murmured:
"And… I wanted to fall in love."
"That's…."
"Hold hands, go on dates, sleep in the same bed…. All those things couples do — I wanted to try them, just once."
"Someday, you'll be able to."
"Hehehe, really?"
*Cough, cough….*
Leila doubled over, coughing painfully.
When it finally subsided, fresh blood stained the corner of her mouth.
There really wasn't much time left.
Leila seemed to take stock of her own condition and hesitated for a moment.
*Did it really have to come to this?*
For just an instant, she genuinely wavered — but she steeled herself.
"Commander. Have you ever… kissed someone?"
"Never. I've never had a partner to begin with…."
"Really? You're so handsome, though…."
"I never had the time for it. I turned everyone down."
Yujin was telling the truth.
He was, beneath his bluntness, undeniably good-looking.
Back at the military academy, he'd attracted quite a bit of attention from women.
But he'd never had the bandwidth for anything like romance.
He had wanted to become a substitute for the brother he'd lost.
He had simply pushed everyone away.
So Leila was the first woman who had ever become his friend.
Someone beyond that line — he had never even let himself think about it.
And yet she had stepped across that line without warning.
"Then… would you like to practice? Just once?"
"Practice meaning… a k-kiss?"
"Is that not allowed…?"
Leila tugged at the hem of his uniform and looked up at him.
He was visibly flustered by the sudden request.
"S-something like that should be saved for… a future partner…."
In that moment, Yujin became aware of the reality he had been refusing to accept.
There was no way for Leila to survive this.
She had no future to speak of.
*Oh.*
*I didn't want to believe this person was going to die.*
Yujin finally acknowledged the feeling he had been turning away from.
And at last, he was crushed beneath a grief he could no longer endure….
*Peck.* Something touched his lips.
Cold, and soft, and achingly tender.
Yujin's entire field of vision filled with Leila.
"Hehehe…. I did it."
The kiss was brief.
Perhaps she had spent every last ounce of strength just to lift herself up.
Leila slumped, and her condition deteriorated in an instant.
Perhaps even the way she had been speaking so calmly until now —
perhaps she had been hiding how bad it was, with everything she had left.
Like sand slipping through cupped hands.
Leila rested against Yujin's arm and made one last request.
"Don't forget… our first kiss…."
With those words, Leila's eyes slowly closed.
The flame of her life flickered and dimmed.
Death reached out and took her hand.
Leila's final moment.
Yujin, jaw clenched tight, barely managed to speak.
"How could I… ever forget…."
He couldn't.
As long as he lived, this moment — this one, above all others — never.
He drove his fist into the ground, hard enough to draw blood from his palm.
"Ngh…. Ugh…! Aaah—!"
*Drop. Drop.*
Tears fell and traced down Leila's cheek.
The emotions he had been holding back could no longer be contained.
Yujin squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to muffle the sounds tearing out of him.
And so he didn't notice.
That Leila had opened her eyes again.
That she was watching him with a flushed, enraptured expression.
*Haaa…. Yes. This is it…. This is what I wanted to see! That face — the face of him suffering so badly he can't take it anymore! Just looking at it, I could almost—*
Her eyes went hazy and unfocused.
A tingling rush flooded up from the base of her skull.
Her mind felt like it was on fire — pure, blissful ecstasy.
It was nothing like watching a video or reading a comic.
This was despair she had crafted herself, from the very first step to the last.
And he was suffering from it like *that* — agonized, grief-stricken, writhing!
Leila felt something wet between her legs.
Whether it was blood or something else entirely, she couldn't tell.
*I wish this moment could last forever….*
But, as fate would have it, that wish went unfulfilled.
Something she had forgotten entirely chose this moment to make itself known.
Pain. The sensation Runner's High had been suppressing all this time.
*Oh no.*
Leila understood.
What was coming next would be nothing short of horrific.
The price for forcing a body that should not have moved to move was arriving.
She would scream like an animal rather than a human being, thrashing wildly.
She would bleed from every opening in her body and die in a grotesque, repulsive mess.
*Hmm. That's a bit much, isn't it?*
Her mood soured sharply, and she gathered what little strength remained.
She didn't want to ruin the scene she had worked so hard to create.
So she fired a current of electricity directly into her own heart.
The faint beating stopped.
Consciousness receded rapidly from a body that had already been on the edge.
*I'm satisfied…. Yes. The real Leila would have been satisfied with this too.*
Of course, it would be a lie to say she had no lingering regrets.
There were plenty of other ways to draw out that anguished expression besides dying.
She had wanted to see Arishia's suffering face, and the others' too.
But well — this was a good death, all things considered.
It was a life given back to her after dying once already.
A ninety-point ending was more than satisfying enough.
The happy scene before her eyes grew distant.
The sensation of her consciousness scattering into fragments, deep and fine.
With Yujin's grief-stricken voice as her lullaby —
once again, death wrapped itself around Leila.
*
Like emerging from a tunnel, the darkness gave way to light in an instant.
A dazed, floating feeling — like waking from a shallow sleep.
I looked around, and found myself already on a familiar train.
*When did I ride this before? Was it when I was heading to Lumia?*
I glanced down slowly, and there was Leila's familiar uniform.
No ragged wound in my side — perfectly clean, as if nothing had happened.
*Wait, why did I think there was a wound just now?*
Only then did I startle fully awake.
"Huh."
I wasn't sure what was going on, but it seemed I was still alive.