"Baka!"

Louise was glaring with the rage of a tiger, and she was furiously cracking a short black whip.

Saito was smart, and had put himself far away from Louise-with a table between the two.

However, it wasn't far enough to prevent her from yelling at him.

"I thought that you had promised to stay loyal to me!"

"I did! It's all a misunderstanding!"

"It shouldn't be a problem!" Louise's eyes were somewhat moist, and her yelling was really getting too Saito's ears. "You are MY servant, you should be answering only to ME!"

"I told you, that maid forced herself on me!"

"And you just let her?"

Saito had no response, and he started to back up as Louise came closer.

"Louise, wait! I'm sorry, it won't happen again! I-"

But she just kept walking past him, through the open door behind him, and closed it. It was as if

Saito had been a pillar in the center of the room.

Saito sighed. "Dodged a bullet there."

He slumped, and walked over to the twin bed that was up against the wall. Flopped into it, and lay face-down, sobbing into a pillow.

"Louise, I'm so sorry..."

He hated arguments. He always had, and this one was no different. Each time it was something

stupid, a misinterpretation, a missed laundry, something that was always resolved quickly.

"But for how long? How long?" He cried to himself, and worried that the next time they argued one would say something the other didn't mean, and have their relationship ruined forever.

"I miss my parents."

Saito sometimes wished that his runes weren't there, as it seemed like they were the only things binding him to this magical world. And as he sat up and looked at them they seemed to be staring at him right back, almost saying, Go ahead. Try to get us off. We're part of you, and will always be. There's no escape.

But unlike the other times, where Saito simply dried his tears, went and found Louise, and apologized, he reached under the bed and grabbed a knife. He knew that Louise kept it under her bed, but he had never really known why. Protection? But she had her spells...

He shook that thought out of his head, and looked at his runes. They were glowing, as they always did whenever Saito was holding some sort of weapon.

"I really hate you guys."

The only reply of his runes was to glow even brighter. They itched slightly, which bothered Saito.

They never itched.

"I'm not going to deal with you guys anymore."

He put the knife at the edge of the first rune. An X. He traced it slightly, and then decided to just cut it out.

"Nothing to it, just carving out the rune. Just carving out the rune."

Saito reassured himself of this as he pushed the point in deeper. He was rewarded by a drop of blood, which disappeared almost as soon as it appeared.

Saito frowned. A bead of sweat rolled down his face as he placed the knife back on the bed.

Softly, yet forcefully.

"I can't do that. Can I?"

He contemplated. He always wore long sleeves, so it was definitely possible to slit his wrists and not have anyone know.

On the other hand, he would be betraying Louise for sure. He didn't want to do that, she meant everything to him. They were practically going out, for crying out loud. He couldn't disrespect her!

Could he?

"Could I?"

He grabbed the knife again, an odd glint in his eyes.

"I can't go for the rune, people might see that. But the wrist, the wrist..."

He rolled up his left sleeve, exposing his pale, unmarked arm.

Saito moved the blade horizontal to the wrist. He hesitated.

Then he slashed.

Blood gushed out like a river as Saito jumped up. He had cut very deep and now he was panicking as blood spilled onto the carpet. Saito, cupping his arm tenderly, rushed over to Louise's dresser and pulled out the first thing his hand closed around; a pink skirt. He wrapped it around his arm and ran into the bathroom, more in shock than anything else.

As Saito stood there, letting the skirt soak up the blood over the sink, he chuckled to himself.

"People do this to themselves? Idiots..."

He sighed.

"I just hope that Louise doesn't walk in. She wouldn't exactly react too happily to blood being everywhere, especially if I told her that it was mine."

The blood from Saito's wrist was dripping more slowly now, and as Saito put the skirt into the bin of clothing to wash later, her realized something.

"I can't feel my left hand."

Saito had cut so deep that he had severed a nerve to his hand, causing him to not feel anything there. It was curable by magic, but who would do that?

"Hey, could you cure my arm? What happened? Oh, I was just trying to cut myself and I accidentally severed a nerve. Now, are you gonna cure it or not?"

He sighed, and got a towel from the bathroom, he wet it, and as he was walking to the rug to clean it up, something odd happened. The room seemed to spin and twirl before his eyes.

"What? What's going-"

The room made a final swerve, and Saito collapsed, unconscious and bleeding profusely.