The ring fell.
It slipped from Yuuta's finger, silver and bright, and hit the ground with a soft sound that should have been lost in the chaos, that should have been swallowed by the wind and the snow and the screaming.
But Erza heard it.
The sound cut through everything, sharp and clear, a bell tolling for something that had ended.
She picked it up.
Her hands were shaking.
Her vision was blurred with tears.
She held the ring up to Yuuta's face, to his closed eyes, to his peaceful smile.
"Look," she said, and her voice was soft now, gentle, the voice of someone who had lost her mind and did not care. "The ring fell out..... You need to put it back on."
She tried to slide it onto his finger.
It would not go.
The ring that had fit so perfectly, that had become part of him, that had pulsed with the same light as her own, it slipped over his knuckle and fell back into her palm, over and over, refusing to stay, refusing to accept that he was still here, still warm, still hers.
