III. Hundreds

When he was younger, around the age of eight or nine, Seishiro could remember having a very vivid dream.

In his dream, there were hundreds of them. Dead bodies surrounded him, face down, blood forming, pooling around their forms. The forms that no longer sought breath, no longer needed it.

Those were the bodies of those who had been killed by the Sakurazukamori.

Those were the bodies, the number of which he was supposed to kill, to execute, in his lifetime.

Looking at the sheer number, it was then that it happened, with a scarlet red knife clutched in his fist,

He realized…

The bodies – the bodies…

They need not worry anymore.

Their worries, their troubles, the memories of guilty pasts – they would finally be over.

He remembered shooting straight up in his bed, sitting up.

He had touched his face.

His face was matted with tears – salty, fluid.

But… he had been happy.

His chest was swelling, overflowing with the happiness that he felt, that had consumed him.

For the first time in his life, up to that point in his life anyway – he had remembered being truly and irrevocably happy.