Makoto sits upon his couch in his apartment waiting for Sekai to make tea as she had so offered to do so. He thinks about what she might have gone through when she went to the doctor. He wonders if she had gotten the wrong idea about the whole thing as the doctor only wanted to check and see if she really is pregnant. Then there was also that look she had. A poker-faced expression with empty trance-like eyes.

His thoughts are interrupted by his chiming cellphone, showing it to be a text message. Expecting it to be from Kotonoha, he gets up and goes into his bedroom as he takes it out. Something that he doesn't want Sekai to try and read over his shoulder if she happens to come out of his kitchen.

Once there, he starts reading it. But it isn't from Kotonoha, but from. . . .

"Sekai?" He mused softly to himself with a hint of bewilderment.

The message consists of only one word: sorry. It is then followed by one blank line after another, showing that the return button is being repeatedly pressed by Sekai. Makoto continues to watch as line after blank line is displayed. He keeps staring curiously at it, wondering if this is some sort of joke on Sekai's part. If it is, then it's an unusual one at that.

For a moment, the blank lines stop. Yet only for that moment because another line comes up. This one also reading only one word: goodbye.

Makoto puzzles over this. That is when he suddenly feels a presence behind him and turns to confront it. In an instance, Sekai's expressionless face looms before his own as she lunges at him. Her eyes now cold and dead.

In the next instance, he feels a long and large cold blade pierce his jacket and shirt. To be immediately followed by skin and muscle as pain sears throughout his stomach. In that moment, shock overwhelms him and his life begins flashing before his eyes. He drops his cellphone.

He next distinctively feels an intestine getting severed, causing even more pain so intense that he doubles over and clutches at his stomach with both hands, causing him to lose balance. He falls to the floor upon his front, feeling as if he is having a nightmare.

"You're despicable!" Sekai cried.

Makoto next feels the blade pierce his back, scraping a rib. Once again, horrific mind-numbing pain shoots through him, causing his eyes to water. The situation finally registers in his brain and intense horror fills him. On a reflex, he turns over onto his back. Big mistake as he is now fully exposed to Sekai as she clearly sees her advantage and is quick to straddle him. Between the horror and the pain ravaging Makoto, along with the terror of Sekai's homicidal wrath, he is effectively paralyzed. Through the haze of tears all he can do is watch Sekai raise a now bloodied kitchen knife (a knife that belongs to him) high over her head with both bloodied hands. Her expression is of both fury and anguish.

"Wanting happiness only for yourself," she cried, "with Katsura!"

And she plunges that knife into him again. This time, he can hear the sound of his own flesh being punctured with a sickening crunching tearing sound. Once more she pulls the knife out and raises it high with both hands and plunges into him again.

And repeats this several more times.

Pain and horror beyond anything Makoto had ever experienced in his entire life saturates his being. His life continues flashing before his eyes, and all of it involving both Kotonoha and Sekai. More tears flow down his cheeks. Guilt manages to worm its way into that churning ocean of horror, further preventing his survival mode from kicking in. Guilt over how he had destroyed the recent events of his life with Sekai, Kotonoha, and even with the other girls.

He now feels that he deserves to die.

From Makoto's perspective, the stabbing seems to go on and on. His stomach and lower chest being the areas to get punctured. Not once does he even scream out in pain, even though it's enough to do so. That is when he feels the blade pierce through the left-side of his breastbone, squarely through his heart as it felt as if it had nearly gotten sliced in two. It's all over now, this he knew. With his last bit of fading life, he manages to reach up, ignoring the agonizing pain of torn flesh, to touch Sekai's stomach. He suddenly feels satisfation.

"Thank goodness!" Rasping what he knows are to be his last words, as he feels nothing inside of her.

This causes Sekai to give pause. Makoto sees the raging agony of her expression lighten with puzzlement. Satisfied, he collapses as his hand falls away. He stares upward, determined to keep his eyes open so that Sekai can watch his life slip away. He watches her expression fade to shock before his vision turns blurry as blackness closes in from all around and forms tunnel vision, which in turn begins disappearing into darkness.

His last thoughts before his mind drifts into oblivion is over how much Kotonoha will suffer.

The sun is setting on this overcast day; casting a red, orange, and yellow glow throughout the clouds over the western horizon that is the Sea of Japan. A cool zephyr is blowing from over the sea, carrying the smell of brine over the landscape of Hokkaido toward its majestic snow-capped mountains that dominate the landscape.

A figure dressed in a formal navy blue suit, white shirt, red tie, and clutching a simple black cane stands upon those shores staring out over that sea.

That figure is Ito Makoto.