Two childhood friends bound by a tragic fate. Ordinary man, bring salvation to the soul of the girl who’s transformed into wayward destruction itself.
That grassland on the Seventh Kingdom’s front line spread out as far as the eye could see.
In mere seconds, it was turned into a barren wasteland, along with everything present—Loki the shenmo, the military fortifications, and nature itself. All were swallowed up by the noise and expunged.
“Aria...” Yoshida, who’d miraculously escaped the noise, stared in horror at the girl who stood alone in the heart of destruction that extended for several kilometers. He didn’t think he’d ever see her again. Not in this life. Their meeting during the Titanomachy should have been their last, because there was no more need for them to come face-to-face with one another.
“I have to do it,” he said. He stood up and drew a knife, a perfectly ordinary one with a worn handle, from his breast pocket. “I’m probably the only one who can kill Aria. None of the others could do it, not against her.”
Her eyes were the same as that day, filled with nihilism as deep as the ocean and a hint of loneliness.
The moment Yoshida looked into her eyes, he took off screaming, the sound trailing after him as he ran.
I can’t do it. I haven’t changed at all. I’m still exactly like I was back then.
✦ ✦ ✦
The extremely average boy who’d been born in the Seventh Kingdom’s countryside and the girl had met by sheer coincidence.
Yoshida was always weak. His reflexes were poor and he wasn’t particularly smart either. Above all else, he was awfully meek, which made him the preferred target of the neighborhood bullies.
That day, he was crying because the other kids had focused on him as a target in their game of dodgeball, like they usually did. If he didn’t want to play, he could’ve said no; if they angered him, he could’ve started a fistfight. However, Yoshida wasn’t brave enough to do either. One could call him a gentle soul, but the truth was less kind—he was afraid of people hurting him if he did anything to push back.
What a weak and pathetic boy he knew himself to be. The frustration he directed toward himself far exceeded any he harbored toward his bullies. If his father saw him like this, he would scold him by saying something like, “Stop crying over every little thing. Act like a man!”
For that reason, Yoshida hid himself away in an abandoned church at the outskirts of the village and cried until his tears had run dry. However, on that day, someone else was already there.
“Oh?” she said.
A girl close to his age that he’d somehow never seen around the village was there. Her long black hair was carefully groomed and glossy, and while she looked both cute and sweet, something about her overall appearance gave her a refined air.
Yoshida stared dumbfounded at the girl for a moment, until she noticed him and spoke.
“Are you crying?”
“No, I, erm...” He stumbled over his words, then tried to wipe his tears a little too late. He didn’t want a girl to see him crying like a baby.
However, the girl seemed unbothered by it. “What a waste,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Look how pretty the stars in the night sky are.” She pointed up as she said it.
The stars were certainly visible that night, but it was the same night sky Yoshida had seen since the day he’d been born. He couldn’t recognize anything special in them, but the girl viewed that commonplace sight with sparkling eyes.
“It’s not just the night sky. The sea, rivers, forests, the land, as well as the people and animals who live here...the world is filled with beauty. Your eyes will blur if you cry, and you won’t be able to see them as they are,” she’d said with a smile.
Yoshida was captivated by her glittering eyes that believed in the beauty of the world.
“My name is Aria. What about you?”
“I’m Yoshida.”
“Uh-huh. Say, wanna watch the stars together? It’s a waste not to share such a pretty scene with someone.”
That was their first encounter. A memory of the first love between Yoshida, who had yet to become one of the Seven Heroes, and Aria, who had yet to become a disaster.