If you stay by his side, you won't live very long.

She thinks back often to that memory of their first meeting and questions herself every single time why she'd told him what she did. Warned a stranger she didn't think she'd meet again about a fate she had barely sensed when she could have closed her eyes and pretended not to see.

The fate she'd seen - sadness, pain and regret. The chill of the night bites into skin as red flowed outwards from inside.

Maybe she had wanted to save him, this smiling stranger who, reminding her of an endless serene ocean and the gentle summer breeze, reached out to her. Later, not much later, she learns of his kindness and his warmth even if his skin remains cool to the touch as they walk in the midst of red raging flames.

Cool, but never the coldness of death.

(That night, she'd woken up with tears in her eyes, knowing that the world went wrong.)

Never, until now.

It became a countdown, a search for blood owed; time raced against the clock of uncontrollable nightmares, against furious flames.

Don't go.

She doesn't say this aloud to him.

Don't go, Mikoto.

Her fingers grasp empty air.

Silently, wordlessly, she watches him leave, knowing now she'd said the wrong words back then.

Without you by his side, that person will die.

She should have told him that. If she'd said that instead... Could the future she thought always inevitable have changed?

Following the red lights, the memories of them, up into the sky, she watches them shine.

It's beautiful, she thinks. It's beautiful, but.

It's a sight of two people she'll never see again.

Gone, she sings, her voice rising off into the windless night, he has gone.