Disclaimer: I do not own Your Lie in April or any anime characters consisted in the novel.

Chapter 1

The girl on the operating table was desperately trying to open her eyes, looking at the dazzling and frigid lights above her head.

She knew it was of no use: in several minutes, herself would faint due to anesthetic, and, during a period after that, her life would be at mercy of some men wearing white gowns. They were standing around her, holding surgical instruments reflecting frigid lights and wearing repressive white masks on their faces. The operating table, too, was as cold as the butcher's cutting meat board. Behind harsh white gowns were green walls, and, ironically, such greenness failed to let her feel any liveliness. Maybe it is because they are not real grasses, she thought.

They were talking. She tried to listen as if she could hear some, but, as anesthetic came to have effect, what she could hear turned more and more obscure, and finally all were of total silence, like silence in a morgue. Her big eyes as blue as the sky were wide open, desperately resisting effects of ether, but, despite that, she could not evade the inevitable end.

She yearned for another look at the world.

What she yearned for another look at was too much: apprehensive and anxious parents waiting out of the operation room, the bridge above the river surface, flying cherry blossom petals in the park in the spring, the piano and children in the cake shop, Tsubaki and Watari worrying for her, and ... and the boy in blue playing for her on the stage. These were all precious and indispensable ones in her life. She shook her head slightly, several tears rolling down on her face, sadly knowing that she might not see them again.

She thought and thought and closed her big, blue eyes wistfully, but her lips were still moving a bit, muttering a name:

"Kousei ..."

Later, Miyazono Kaori dared to open her eyes.

She was not lying in the operating room – rather, she was standing on soft, green grass like a carpet. She looked around curiously, noting blades of grass waving slightly in mild breeze. There was no sun in the sky, but mere stars all over it and sea–like dark blueness. Fireflies were scattered on the ground, illuminating weakly as stars on the sky. Afar laid a river flowing quietly and an illegible bridge above it. She then looked at herself: her hair was as golden as before, and she was wearing a white robe; she was an ancient Greek sculpture.

"Ah?!" exclaimed her.

She did not know where it was but felt some familiarity, closed her eyes and concentrated to search memory in her brain. Suddenly, she opened her eyes, mouth wide open, because she knew it. This was the grass under that bridge. She was the one who played hopscotch with little kids on the bridge in the sunset, and she and Kousei were the ones who boldly jumped into the river on that afternoon with spring breeze. She still remembered Kousei's countenance at that moment: although his clothes and shoes were all wet, he was still smiling. An uninhibited, big smile from his deep heart.

And now there was only night. Only night.

"What happened?" asked herself the confused yellow–haired girl. She raised her head to look up at luminous stars like thousands of sky lanterns, then stared at the bridge faraway. She wandered in that direction, but surprisingly found the verdant carpet endless and the bridge unreachable. Kaori curiously looked around for clues, eyes enlarged, feeling more confused. She stroke her chest and kept asking herself,

"Why am I here? Why there is little light? Why can't I walk to that bridge? Why? Why ..."

A shadow appeared before her all of a sudden. That shadow possessed no shape, merely squirming here, but it seemed to have its own sense, stretching dark tentacles toward her like a beast waving claws and teeth before its dying prey.

Intense fear spread over Kaori's face, she retreated back step by step and stumbled onto the ground by accident. She shrieked fearfully, retreating back awkwardly leaning on her hands, but the shadow had no intention to stop. Fireflies on the ground went out in an instant, and the earth became dark again. Stars vanished, leaving an all–black, velvet–like sky, portending the girl's tragic fate.

Then another more horrible thing occurred: her white robe was turning black! Bit by bit, step by step, diabolic blackness was devouring Kaori's robe from bottom.

"Kousei! Save me! No! No ..." She desperately shrieked again, tried to continue her retreat, but had nothing to do except sitting here. Such a powerless feeling reminded her of the night when she saw her parents crying on cold chairs in the hospital.

Then all was black.

"Hey! Hey!" Kaori was yelling with all of her force, struggling to escape the darkness just like survivors buried under ruins in an earthquake. Although she had tried her greatest strength – much greater than the strength she used against Kousei – the darkness enveloped her more tightly, its sticky tentacles entangled her arms, ankles and even neck like an giant octopus, wrapping her tightly and nearly suffocating her. She kept struggling with her body, arms and legs, but it was of no use: the fiercer she struggled, the tighter the bond of darkness grew, seemingly warning her not to resist. She could not get rid of thick darkness at all, but slowly closed her eyes out of hopelessness.

Kaori presumed that she was going to die.

But the fact was just the opposite.

At the moment when she faltered on the brink of death like a goldfish stranded on shore, darkness miraculously loosened its merciless embrace, and Kaori again stood erect on the grass beside the bridge. Kaori glanced around and surprisingly realized it was day now: mild sunshine shone over grasses with aroma like cake's smell, the river flowed quietly like a blue ribbon, and the bridge faraway seemed no longer illegible but clearer than before as if it could be reached by mere hands. She grew obsessed in such beautiful scenery, dreamily shouting words like "Here is so beautiful! I want to stay here forever!" seemingly having forgotten that horrifying scene just now.

Attempting to feel natural beauty of grass and bridge with her heart, Kaori slowly closed her eyes again, but before them was darkness as horrible as the darkness pushing down on her: it, like a bottomless abyss, was diabolically and gradually consuming her vestigial confidence. Kaori opened her eyes hastily, the darkness vanished at once, bright sunshine and the scenery were still before her eyes. She widened her eyes, looked at herself quickly and was startled again: her robe was brutally torn apart at multiple places, filthy dust and bloody scars crawled over her white, smooth and flawless skins, among which one even stretched from her hand to her upper arm like a lethal lightning, evidently due to the arduous struggle. She just stood here with deep confusion on her face, lokking down at grass under her face, knowing no about where to go.

Suddenly she sullenly whispered to herself:

"Don't lower your head again."

Kaori lifted her head slowly, staring up to the sun high in the sky, and then powerfully stretched her injured arms toward it as if trying to grasp it in them. She closed her eyes, her lips moving slightly, as if praying to the sun. She knew it was of no use, but she now had only one wish – one sincere wish:

"I don't want to leave this world so early."

Abruptly she felt her feet floating – in fact, it was herself who floated from the ground bit by bit, rising up incessantly to the height of the sun. Bright and glaring sunshine prevented her from opening her eyes, so she could merely feel the intense warmth of the sun with her eyes closed.

The sun shone on her white robes and skin, on her big blue eyes, and made her as bright as the sun. If someone on earth were passing by at this time, he would have thought that there were two suns in the sky.

When she opened her eyes again, the warm sun was in her. Her white robe had disappeared, so had and dust and scars. Her whole body now was giving off light and warmth like the sun. On her face a pair of big, blue and curious eyes like infants' overlooked the ground curiously with a sunny, sincere smile.

She finally made up her mind, raised her clenched fists as if she were flying toward the sky, and slowly but firmly spoke her declaration aloud:

"I am love, I am hope, I am the light guarding the world, I am Sun!"

"Succeeded!" sighed the chief surgeon with relief, who clutched a lancet before the cold operating table. He would sigh after every surgeon whatever the result was, and the patient's fate could be only known via his next words. "We have succeeded in saving another life."

"To be honest, I'm believing in God again," said an excited assistant with sweat filling his forehead, wiping perspiration on his head and gasping like an athlete after a sprint race, "How could such miracle happen without Him? Really, I don't know what these atheists think ..."

"Be careful, I am an atheist," protested another assistant with sweat filling his forehead, waving his forceps in his hand violently, "And, as I've said numerous times, there is no god, it's our effort which saved this child. You have to know that religion is the opia..."

"Come on, shut up you two, the patient now wakes up!" Without raising his head, the chief surgeon yelled so impatiently and angrily that these two eyed the former sheepishly and each other hostilely, and dared not to speak again. He then gently said to the recently awakened Kaori, smiling like spring breeze, "Yes, the surgery is done. You have been out of danger, and a few days of observation is enough."

"Thanks," said Kaori on the operating table weakly and softly.

No one knew then that this common girl would one day become a perennial legend.