Inside Kaori's skull the blood thread suddenly fragmented into several smaller one's.
The violet light in her eyes, the defiant fire that had burned since childhood—dimmed and went dark in the span of a single heartbeat.
'Oh,' she thought, with the strange clarity that sometimes comes in the instant before death. 'I'm dying.'
There were no dramatic final words or profound revelation. Just a simple, undeniable truth that was recognized and accepted in the space between one breath and the next that would never come.
Her knees buckled. The marble rushed up to meet her face. She felt the impact distantly, as if it were happening to someone else's body.
Kaori's last conscious perception was of the moon above, cold and distant and absolutely indifferent to her death.
Then darkness claimed her.
Ishiki looked at the scene with wide eyes, horrified and absolutely frozen at place.
"Kaori?!"
Ishiki's voice cracked on her name. He scrambled forward on hands and knees.
