"Hm. That's no good."
—Is that?
Armour?
I almost immediately render who this is.
A knight, an odd thing only told in fictional stories and fairy tales.
A knight of blue, looming above me at seven feet tall, with a longsword.
How could such a thing exist?
Have I already died, and been sent to Heaven?
Wait, I am dead, right?
The knight smiles at my troubled face.
"Your heart's no good, and your neck is pretty beat up, too…"
It really is a miracle that you're alive. I wouldn't be surprised if you believed in a higher power."
He caresses my face, but the sensation is numb.
I look around me, and I can still see the pool of bodies.
We're laying in a pool of my own blood.
I thought I had escaped the red hell, but I did not die.
Maybe it was by chance, but my heart is still beating.
It has to be. Even if I can't feel it or hear it, if I am alive, it is beating.
"Here, take my heart. It's not like I need it anymore."
The knight chants an incantation calmly after coming to a bitter decision.
The decision was made almost too quickly, almost without a second thought.
It was as if after looking at me, he already decided what he was going to do.
"Transfiguration—!"
"------."
I can't speak, and I don't fully understand what's going on.
But I wave my hands in rejection.
"------."
I can understand that he'll die.
He's going to die if I am going to make it out of this hell.
Whatever he's doing, he's certainly going to die from it.
"Healing song of the Seventh Degree—!"
Green tattoos erupt from his forearms and eyes, like scribbly veins etched across his skin.
Pulsating, he faces his hand toward me and touches my chest.
"----Ag–!?"
It feels as if my heart popped like a balloon.
In an instant, I am dead.
And then, my chest is filled with something.
Like a tank, my chest is filled with a liquid like water.
"I will give everything I owe to you."
Opening my two eyes once more, I can see the knight staring at me weakly.
I am laying in his arms now.
He gives a faint smile, as if he were saying 'goodbye', and the strange lines on his skin fade to a demonic black.
"Be happy, Otouto. Your life is worth living."