Kuro no Maou-Prologue

Prologue

There was a pure white space.

It was a room of 4 walls painted with seamless white. In the middle there was an altar that looks like a clump of hardened pure white snow and the light brightening the room was also white.

“Bring in the offering.”

A voice came out of nowhere filled up the room.

The door started to open and from over the dark passage, a line of people came into the room. Like the white room, those people were also wearing full-white clothes. Wearing clean white robe, they covered their faces with white mask and were not exposing any skin parts at all.

In their hands were white boxes with various size, in total of 6 boxes. They put the boxes or ‘the offering’ to their designated place and quickly left the room. The large door slowly closed and a lock sound echoed in the silence of the white room.

“The preparation is complete.”

A man muttered as he was satisfied after watching the preparation from another room. The man was also wearing all-white clothes like those people earlier although he was not wearing a mask. One could see deep wrinkles on his face showing his old age.

“Let us begin.”

Hearing the old man, men-in-white behind him nodded understanding it as a sign to begin.

“『التنين الاسود تقديم إستدعاء الروح باب ربط العالم المختلفة』―― Chanting complete, opening gate now――”

The old man closed his eyes, as he heard the voice from behind him from the silence.

At that moment, strong light overflowed from the white altar in the room, probably strong enough to make one turns blind. As if to protect his eyes from the strong light, old man’s eyes behind his eyelids were reflecting dark-pitch darkness.

Then, quietness began to return to the noisy white room.

“It’s a success.”

After hearing the old man’s words, voices of joy and relief could be heard among the men-in white.

“Get in position.”

Men-in-white then lined themselves up along the passage to the room with the white altar and moved toward the room.

In their ears, they could hear the old man’s voice as if they were hearing it directly in their head, without missing a single word.

“Male, 17 year-old, a student――”

The mysterious person’s personal data came from the old man’s mouth. It was not known whether those men know the meaning of the words but none of them were making perplexed expression.

“His name is――Fuu..Ku..Hahaha..”

As the old man were about to say the name, a sudden laughter echoed.

“Fuhahahahaha!”

As the old man continued to laugh at the unforeseen name, although they kept on walking toward the room, the men were beginning to flinch.

The men finally reached the room, arriving at its door and began to open its lock.

“Forgive me for the impoliteness. I really did not see this kind of name coming.”

The old moved his sight towards the inside of the altar room as he said that.

Unchanged, the room was still purely white without stains.

The boxes that were brought earlier had disappeared but inside the white shrine there was a man. A naked man who was lying on his side had appeared.

A man with black hair with appearance matched of what the old man had told.

Then the old man once again told the name of the man.

“His name is, Black Demon King!”

A feeling of soft light touched my eyelids, it slowly lit the consciousness in my head.

Calling back my mind that had fallen deep into slumber and later I awakened to the warmth of the blanket covering my body.

A thought of waking up did come into my mind but the magic-like warmness from the bed kept me from walking out of it.

Just, just a bit more.. 5 more minutes..

“Wake up!”

An angry voice followed by a sudden cold mercilessly attacked my body. The attack was too sudden, I almost jumped out of surprise.

“Uoooo! Enemy attack?!”

“Who on earth are you fighting with… ”

Upon hearing a slightly cold voice, I saw the face of someone I am most familiar with in the world. Realizing that, the sleepiness that had been fogging my head vanished in an instant.

Goodbye dreamland, hello reality.

In that a bit messy of my room, stood in front of me a woman who just stripped the blanket of me and my bed.

A woman with glossy long black hair, fair white skin, high nose with fine body outline, lush lips pulled tight forming a straight line shape and beautifully thin but frowned eyebrows showing a sign of anger.

If one was to look at her piercing sharp eyes, one would be confused whether to call them frightening or beautiful. Nonetheless, one without a doubt would agree that she has very attractive face shape.

To add to her beauty, she is almost 180 cm in height. Slender and long legs with constricted waist line, and her chest underneath the apron she was wearing was like giving pressures of coming out from her apron.

With such cherry picked model-or-gravure-idol-like style of a woman, unless he is a severe pedophile, homosexual or impotent, she would surely captivate the eyes of any man.

Even so, such beauty and nice body never tug at my heartstrings. If I were to give a reason,

“Morning, mom.”

it is because she is my mother.

“Morning. Hurry up and get up, everyone is already at the table for breakfast.”

After saying that, Mom left my room leaving the door opened.

“At least close the door… it’s so cold.”

Looking at the watch on my wrist, it was 6:50 in the morning. As a high-school student with no morning club practice, I could say it is quite an early time to wake up.

Anyway, since Mom had awakened me up, it was not like I could go back to sleep again.

“Oh well, let’s get up and get prepared.”

And so, my unchanging, dull but peaceful life as Kurono Mao today, begins.

I put on my school uniform and went out of my room on the second floor.

After washing my face and brushing my teeth as usual morning grooming, I went to the living room for breakfast.

Like what Mom said, two figures already seated at the dining table.

“Morning.”

Upon my greeting, both of them paid their attention to me.

“Morning.”

One of them is my father.

He is about to enter his 30s but still looked young. In addition to his beautiful wife, his young appearance never fails to surprise his friends and acquaintances.

If he said he is only in his 20s, no one would doubt him at all. Moreover, because of his small and slight figure and baby-face, one might even mistaken him for a teenager.

Looking at my father’s figure, I sometimes think that he never ages or his time is stopped or something.

I think by the time I graduated from high school, if we were to stand next to each other I would surely look older than him.

Oh by the way, I am somewhat tall, nothing like my short-figured father so I could say I look more like my mother.

While I splendidly inherited my mom’s tall height and her sharp-looking eyes, having a height of 183 cm with villainous eyes, I look like a frightening demon.

Although I am glad for being tall, but I also feel kind of sad for having nothing close to my father’s pretty face.

Thanks to my villainous face, even though I do not do anything wrong, people seem to be afraid of me…

“Morning, Mao.”

The other person at the dining table was my sister, Mana.

Completely the opposite of me, my sister took after my father; cute, petite, lovely, vulnerability-over-9000, the one-that-makes-you-feel-you-have-to-protect-her-from-any-danger type of pretty girls.

A college student with twin-tailed black hair that suits her very much; my lovely sister.

“Are you making bento today too?”

“Ah… yea.”

Seeing the cute response of my sister with faintly red-dyed cheeks, I think my heart skipped a beat.

//TN: The actual sentence sounds like the bento is for MC but her sister is actually making it for her boyfriend, not him. I thought it was weird for her sister blushed when making bento for his brother //

However, the secretly-blooming affection within her small-chest was clearly not towards me, but to her boyfriend she got recently.

//TN: MC used the word 胸(mune) for chest which also can be read as heart, but I keep it as chest since MC also wanted to tell us that her sister has small-chest//

Similar to my dad, my sister is usually expressionless, and now she was making such lovely and easy-to-read face. The reason is mainly because she just made her first boyfriend.

Oh well I guess she is that happy. Although I have no slightest idea about boys-and-girls relationship.

It is fine. Someday the day I would get a girlfriend will come too, maybe, most likely, probably, I hopefully wish so.

While trying to let go of anxiety in my heart, I stood up from my chair and cleaned my dishes after finishing my breakfast; rice with miso soup added with something in it.

“Are you going now?”

While putting on my coat, I answered her.

“It’s raining, so I’m taking bus today.”

“I see. Since the bus stop is quite far.”

My sister who went to the same high school until last year knows that it takes quite a time to get to the bus stop from our house.

I can afford to take it easy if I rode my bicycle, but since it was raining heavily, I gave up on that thought.

“Hey, don’t forget this bento.”

“Oh thanks.”

I took the bento from my mom’s hand, put it carefully in my bag so it would not get turned over and headed for the door.

“I’m going.”

Sent off by my families, I could feel the chill in the air outside and started walking.

I was going to get off at the bus-stop in front of my school, however I still need to cross this one crossroad with a traffic-light to reach my school.

Holding a big opened umbrella under this heavy rain, there were a few other students like me, waiting for the traffic-light to turn green at the crossroad.

More students were coming in my way and since the traffic-light was still red, the number of students waiting to cross the road slowly increased.

Among them, I noticed a particular girl.

Because of her slim and slender figure, the dark blue umbrella in her hand looked big on her. With such small girl standing among the crowds of student, one usually will not notice her but her flaxen-long hair made her stands out, giving her a strong presence.

There was a girl who I think is her classmate beside her, as they were chatting while walking but then came to a stop when something was blocking them, which was me waiting for the traffic-light. Although I felt somewhat awkward to greet her as I were the reason their conversation stopped.

“Ah.”

“Uh.”

Casually, my eyes met hers.

Her long eyelashes edged her adorable rounded-eyes. Her eyes could stir a desire of wanting go out with her, they are truly deadly eyes to any man who saw them.

She has fair white skin and sharp body line, plus her straight nose bridge and small lush lips, completed with a beautiful face without any flaw to spoil it.

Her smooth-looking-flaxen-long hair was flowing down long her slim and feminine body line. The girl uniform she was wearing is the very definition of neat-and-clean and made her looked like a fine-lady.

If ideal beautiful girls of most men were to become reality, one of them would definitely be her, a perfect beauty with no flaw to complain about.

Since my eyes met hers and I could not pretend like I do not know her; surely not because she is a perfect beauty that everyone knows about, it was simply because I really do know her and she really does know me.

“Good Morning, Shirazaki-san.”

I prepared my heart, and greeted my same-year club member in the Literature Club, Shirazaki Yuriko.

“Ah, good… Good morning, Kurono-kun…”

Our Literature Club does not have that many members, and of course I know her name, she knows my name and we had conversations a few times before. If I were to say it, we are acquaintances but not yet ‘friends’.

With that said, I already greeted her as my part of courtesy, all she needed to do now is to turn her sight back to her friend who is currently giving me a very suspicious look and return to their lively talks and we both should be fine. Problem solved.

However.

“……”

As if she had something else to say, she just stood there in front of me.

But, in the end, she did not say a thing and the awkwardness and the silence continued between the two of us.

The difference in height between us is about 30 cm. As a result, I was in a situation where I ,naturally and literally, am looking down to her, which I think is a very bad situation.

Perhaps, and I really hope it is not, from other people’s view it might look like I am close questioning Shirazaki.

“Uh,um… Today――”

“Let’s go, Yuriko!”

Shirazaki was about to say something but as the traffic-light turned green her friend had dragged her away by her arm and soon disappeared within crowds of students passing the crossroad.

“…What, are we gonna do something different for today’s club activity?

There is no way Shirazaki would go out of her way to make small talks with me. If anything else, it would be about our club activity. Maybe today there is no club activity?

“Oh well, I’ll know when I go later.”

But, that friend of Shirazaki was really, really giving me a look filled with hostility that made my heart of glass cracked a little.

Above all, Shirazaki herself did not even try to make eye contact with me, only an awkward greeting which made me slowly realized.

“I guess, she really does hate me… “

Today’s lesson was not as boring as one would think, or at least I think so. If one can properly learn and understand the lessons to a certain level, it should be no problem to keep up with the lessons overall. Maybe one can even somehow or other, wait for and enjoy the upcoming tests.

Even so, when one is too tired, any word that comes out from teacher’s mouth would have hypnotism effect that would put one to sleep, is what I think.

“Hey Kurono, lend me you notes.”

However, this time it was not me who got hypnotized and fell asleep, it was my friend.

“I don’t mind but, you know you shouldn’t be sleeping all the way till the 4th period.”

I said with half-amazed tone while handing him my notes that I copied exactly as it was on the blackboard during classical literature lesson.

“Thanks! But you know, I kinda stayed up late last night so I couldn’t help but to fall asleep.”

This guy with not-so-graceful ‘ahahaha’ laugh is one of my few friends, Saika Youta.

Right after 4th period is afternoon break. Saika whose seat is behind me was already into lunchtime-mode.

“So, did you get to finish it last night?”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to get into the heroines’ route. At first, I thought I can just get any one of them and raise her affection level, but it seems I also need to care about other heroines too, so they won’t get jealous――.”

By listening to a part of Saika’s talks, one could already guess what was he talking about. Yes, he was talking about dating simulation games that are not supposed to be available to someone under 18.

“――So yeah, because of that, I had to spend more times that I’d think, and I also stopped to watch late-night anime. I spent like one hour watching too.”

Saika is not particularly tall or short, he is not slim nor fat neither. He is not wearing a glasses like an otaku usually does, but he likes those kind of stuffs.

Although he is not at a level where people would call him an otaku, but his level is not low neither, he is just fond of such stuffs.

Me too although not as much as Saika, but if I were to say it, I also belong to the same category of otaku as him.

The kind of writings I have been doing for my club activity, are not pure literature or mystery kind. It is more to light novel kind of things.

“Isn’t it fine if you just record those late-night animes instead?”

“No no, You need to watch them on-air! Watch and feel the story with them real-time!”

‘Really? I see’ was what I appropriately replied as I took out my bento.

“Oh yeah, by the way I heard about this morning, you came to school today with Shirazaki.”

“No, it was definitely not like that――”

“It’s fine, Kurono. You don’t have to keep that ‘thick character’ act with me.”

Who the hell is acting. I am not that kind of guy who spends every day polishing his own character.

“I saw it. The scene where you and her looking at each other in front of the traffic-light. I’m so jelly. Such eroge-like kind of events, I wanna experience them in real life too!”

“Calm down, Shirazaki and I are just happens to be in the same club. No way it would turn out to be like those eroge-scenes.

“Oh really?”

Wow this guy is giving me a look of no trust at all, saying it right from the depth of his heart. I could even imagine a black-vortex-from-his-back effect from his overreaction.

“That is what MC always says, all of them! They’d be like “I am just a regular high school student, unpopular, I don’t have that kind of relationship with her”――No matter how you see it, isn’t it for goddamn-sure the heroine’s affection level is 100%!”

“I already told you, calm down. Don’t mix reality with fantasy. I’ll tell you this; I am not her childhood friend, I never make any kind of important promise with her, she does not come to my house everyday to wake me up, we do not meet for lunch at rooftop everyday at noon-break. Such eroge-like scenes aren’t happening at all.”

“Oh shut up, you got to do a two-shot scene of coming to school together with a beauty like Shirazaki. Isn’t that would be the best thing ever happens to people like us?! If you tell me you feel nothing thing about that, can you even call yourself a man? A random high school guy would never get such eroge-event-like scene with girls!”

“Well that’s… “

Now that he had said it, it might be true.

It does not really matter whether she is afraid of me or hates me, I am in a position where I can exchange greetings with Shirazaki every morning. That fact alone can already be considered a blessed chance.

If I was not in the Literature Club, I would probably ended up having no interaction with girls. As for my classmates, I think its fine even if I fairly remember their names. Besides, I do not want to be satisfied with just be able to exchange greetings with girls.

“Hang on. If you put it that way, you too got your chance to talk with girls, right? Aren’t you in the Soccer club? That cute manager of your club, didn’t you sometimes chat with her too?”

“You fool! That girl is dating the club captain. Not to mention, the third boyfriend since she entered high school! Noooー I don’t wanna hear about real girl’s love story!”

“Don’t be so picky, isn’t it fine as long as she’s a cute one?”

“Fool! There’s no way such girl who’s on her third boyfriend is a heroine! Only in brutal-genre eroge or noon-drama they should be allowed to exist!”

“Okay! I get it, I get it! I understand what you’re trying to say so calm down. First, sit down.”

While making ‘Okay, fine!’-face, Saika sat back on his chair.

If we continued this heated-up conversation, it would attract the attention of our classmates, and that is not a good thing, not with this kind of topics.

“Hmm if you say a girl already with boyfriend is a NG, then Shirazaki should be one too.”

“Eh, is that so?”

I put my chin on my hand, throwing my gaze to the outside window.

“Shirazaki is a good and kind girl who wouldn’t show unpleasant face even a guy like me talks to her.”

Although she did not make eye contact with me, she did not suddenly run away whenever she sees me, which was good enough for me.

“Well, you look scary, and big.”

“I know, but I’m a bit sensitive about that so, stop it right there.”

“Okay. Then, what about it?”

“Do you really think such good girl don’t have a boyfriend at all?”

It sounds logical to me. There is no way she is only being kind to me, as if such convenience thing would ever happen to me. In the first place, since she is a really kind girl, it would mean that she would treat everyone just the same, no special treatment.

“Hmm it’s true that I do hear some Ikemen-type stories around her.”

“See? I’m just one of those people she knows at school. There are plenty of other people who on better terms with her than me.”

“Huh I know right. Reality is such a sad fact for people like us. Pretty girls are humans too. If there was a nice guy next to them, it’s not strange they’d fall for him.”

“Sounds about right. People like Shirazaki will probably have a boyfriend or two already――”

“No I don’t.”

The one who interrupted me is not Saika. Now that I think of it, I do not have any friend with such cute and cool voice.

Oh no I think I have heard this voice before. It can not be…

“I really don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Shi, Shirazaki-san…”

Why did, with this kind of timing, the real person suddenly appeared here?

Like I told Saika before, we do not eat lunch together at the rooftop or anything, this is the first time she personally came to my class to see me.

What is this feeling of guilty I am feeling right now? I think I can hear my heartbeats too. Not to mention the cold sweat running on my face.

Wait a second, I need to calm down. It’s not like we were badmouthing her behind her.

“Uh um… You know, sorry about that. We kinda talked about you and stuffs.”

Even so, I feel bad and apologized to her.

Well, talking about other people’s relationship and adding your own guess and speculation, is not something that you would want the real person to hear. So I had no options but to apologize.

“Oh, it’s not like I’m mad or anything. I’m sorry too.”

“Ah, I see. Then I guess it’s fine…”

Like hell it is fine. There is nothing fine at all with this atmosphere right now. Saika already turned into a stone statue and making it’s-none-of-my-concern face, basically saying he will not lend me a hand.

It does not look she is raging, maybe she really did mean it when she said that. Even so, now that she had said so, I can not just let the conversation flow stops here.

“Okay. So, what brings you here?”

“Oh, well, I wanted to tell you this morning.”

I tried to change the focus of the conversation, instead of trying to figure out what she thinks about my talks with Saika earlier. As usual, her face was looking down, ever since she came. According to person herself, it was about something she wanted to tell me this morning.

“Today there will be an important club meeting.”

“Meeting? Okay I got it.”

I did not hear anything about a meeting at yesterday’s club activity. Well I guess it is really an important meeting since she went out personally to tell me.

Although, I was planning to go anyway, so it did not change a thing.

“So, I’ll see you at there.”

“Ok, thanks by the way.”

Just like that our short non-idle talks ended and Shirazaki went back to her class. It is the same topic I talk to her with all the times, however.

“Wew pretty girls are really something!”

Saika, who went into a complete silence and statue state, started to breathe again.

“Saika, how could you? You should’ve helped me earlier.”

“No no there’s no way, man. She doesn’t even know me. Well, it ended up just fine, isn’t that good?”

There is no way it ended up just fine. I am pretty sure her impression of me had became even worse.

“She said she don’t have any boyfriend. Isn’t that a good news? You still got a chance now, Kurono!!”

“Really? we’re gonna start this over again?”

“High school life is all about the love events!”

“Huh didn’t you just said you have no interest in real girls?”

“Ok, I think the motivation came to me just now. Kurono, introduce Shirazaki to me next time, okay?”

“Are you gonna support me or you wanted to date her yourself? Make up your mind!”

Although this, I can say it for sure. Someone like me, who is only an acquaintance to Shirazaki, can not really introduce Saika to her. It is just out of my power.

“Enough of these, let’s just eat.”

“Yea I know but afternoon-break is too short. I wish we got 2 hours for it.”

I reached for the bento box I left out on the desk ever since the conversation with Shirazaki.

My thought was, when I open the lid, usual and normal food that does not take too much time to prepare should be inside but,

“What the hell is this…”

On top of the white rice, there were mysterious pink colored flakes, forming a heart-shape entered my vision.

“Oh what’s this? Your bento? Kurono, what’s up this love-filled bento that only supposed to exist in games!?”

“Ah, I get it now…”

There was no way Mom would make a bento filled with this wholeheartedly love feeling.

“Mom gave me the wrong bento box…”

This bento box is with no doubt, the one that my sister made for her boyfriend.

Although I felt a little uneasy, I bet her boyfriend right now is eating my cold and short bento made by mom.

“Wow this is amazing! It’s a heart shape! A heart shape! Ahaha! So epic!! “

I decided to ignore this one friend of mine, and started to dig in my sister’s hand-made bento, while leaving a weird feeling in my heart.

My dear sister, this kind of love, isn’t it too much?

After forcing myself to finish that bento, class continued for another 2 hours and the after-school time came.

I without any trouble, finished my cleaning duty and headed straight for my club room.

As I opened the door to the club room, it made the same sound as when my classroom door. I then walked into the room I was very familiar with.

“Hmm?”

I reflexively let out a voice, since I saw there was only one single person in that room at that very moment.

The Literature Club does not has that many members. Although we do have ghost members and there is also going to be an important meeting, the fact that when I, who is already a little late due to my cleaning duty, came in to see only one person inside was really strange.

I would imagine the club president along with other upperclassmen are chatting to each other while waiting for people to come, but it was not the reality in front of me right now.

On top of that, it never come to my wildest imagination that the only one who came would be Shirazaki.

Sitting on the chair with her back facing the door was, a girl with flaxen-long hair.

“Ah, Kurono-kun.”

“Shirazaki-san, alone?”

“Yeah…”

End of conversation.

I did not think I have anything else to talk to this cute girl with expressionless white face.

While worrying about whether I should continue to chat or not, I sat on one of the chairs.

Although I was thinking about things to talk about, nothing actually came out of my mouth. The girl had said nothing at all too.

In her hand, was a book with cute cover. Consequently, I too took out from my bag a light novel that I made myself.

A booklet of A4 size with a title of “The Legend of Hero Abel” written on it. A straight kind of titles that no RPG nowadays would ever consider to use.

This was the first story I wrote back when I was in middle school. Concerning the contents, one might already have guessed it from the title, is about a hero named Abel defeating a demon king. It has absolutely no feel of originality. Although with clumsy style of writing, I think it was good enough for an amateur work. And I did my best to finish it.

I was thinking about to read it again today, or maybe writing a sequel to it or something similar but…

In the silence clubroom, the only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of Shirazaki and me flipping the page of our books, apart from the sounds came from students doing club activities at the school ground.

Because of the awkward silence, the light novel that I had been trying to read since a while ago did not enter my brain.

Come on, why is it no one coming? I thought there is supposed to be an important meeting today. I do not care who it is so please anyone just come! It is already awkward concerning the stuffs happened during noon-break. Help, I can not stand this awkwardness any longer.

In the first place, I was never alone with Shirazaki before. There was always someone else joining the conversation.

I can not stand this silence any longer, although it feels a little weird but I guess I will start the conversations.

It is alright. She and I are both members of a literature club. We may read different genres but there are still plenty other things about books that we can talk about. It is not entirely impossible. I can do this.

I bet the other members are heading to this room at this very moment and soon will be here. Until then, I only need to make this silence go away. Ok I can do this――

“ Um…” “Uh…”

Damn, our voices mixed.

//TN: Both MC and shirazaki are trying to say something at the same time. The word 被る(kaburu) is used frequently when one sees someone else is doing the exact same thing but I shorten it as “mixed”//

“Ah.. sorry.”

“It’s fine…”

Still the same awkwardness, although this time it was because we both were trying to say something at the same time.

“Please, go ahead――”

“No, it’s fine, Kurono-kun can say it first.”

Even if you said so, I do not actually have anything to talk about.

“No, it’s nothing. Just wondering why the others are so late.”

I just muttered the most unreasonably bland thing I could talk of, and starting to see myself as a boring guy.

“Yeah I also…”

It looks like she was also thinking about the same――

“…Well, I’m sorry. It’s not it.”

“Huh?”

“The truth is, that is not what I’ve wanted to say.”

It appeared to me that she was being more talkative than usual.

She sounded like this something she wanted to talk is about me.

“The truth is――”

The determined Shirazaki stood up from her seat.

The standing up Shirazaki, who had never looked me in the eyes, was now gazing at me with both of her eyes.

That adorable round eyes were glittering with determination.

I was surprised with the sudden change of her altitude but I remained calm.

“It was… a lie.”

“Eh, what was a lie?”

“The meeting I told you earlier. It was a lie.”

I could not comprehend immediately what she said. I get what her words mean but at the same time I think I do not.

“Oh, really? Is that so?”

That was the only think I could think of to say. I am not particularly mad and the lie she told me did not bring any harm to me. As I could not think of the reason she did it, so I focused on keeping the flow of conversation.

“Well, that is because, you see…… ”

“…”

She suddenly went quiet and the conversation stopped.

I wanted to say something but I feel like I should not interrupt her at this point so I just waited patiently.

“You know, I――”

She at last started to talk again.

“About Kurono-kun――!!”

It was clear as crystal to me Shirazaki was saying something.

“……?”

But, for unknown reason I did not hear anything. Not even Shirazaki’s voice, not even sound from outside the room. I could not hear a sound.

Why? Why could not I hear a thing? Is something wrong with my ears?

“――ugh!?”

In that silent world, suddenly I felt a sharp pain running in my head.

Comparing it to the headaches I often got during a cold, this one I am having right now is clearly on a different level. In fact, I had never had this kind of heavy headache.

I felt that this headache was not just an ordinary headache, it felt like a life-threatening one――

“!?”

My vision went upside-down, and a sudden pain ran throughout my whole body.

A few second later, I realized that I had fallen of my chair.

The pain worsen every passing second and I could not get myself up from the floor.

The only thing I could do was just lying on the floor holding my head with my both hands.

I think I let out voices of pain, but still I could not hear them in my ears.

“――――!”

With tears hanging at the edge of her eyes, I saw the figure of desperate Shirazaki which I have never seen, clinging on me.

Instead of complaining about the pain, instead of trying to call for ambulance, my head was currently thinking about Shirazaki who had a sorrowful look because of me.

As the vision of her crying face still reflected in my eyes, it slowly became something like flickering black sands.

This looks bad. My vision is becoming strange.

The black sands, like a sandstorm, quickly blocked my vision and the face of a crying pretty girl who was supposed to be in front of me slowly faded.

I could not hear anything, I could not see anything and before I knew it, me who was lying on the floor already lost my sense of touch. I did not even know whether I was still breathing or not.

All that left was, the pain that overran my head.

Am I going to die?

My five senses were lost in the darkness, and I finally unable to tell my own consciousness.

I do not want to die――

That was my last thought.