I open my eyes. The ceiling is dark. The air is cold, but the blanket on my body keeps me warm. It's probably night, since I see no signs of sunlight in this room. The wind is blowing inside because someone left the windows open, but thanks to it, I can see a faint moonlight illuminating the room's interior.

This place seems to be the castle's infirmary…the real one, not the makeshift hospital that was burned down to the ground during the siege. I still remember this place, I spent sometimes in here before this whole war started, thanks to the mess I made at the familiar competition.

My memory is still hazy. I can remember most of the siege, about Origen, about Lapidoth…but I can't seem to recollect whatever happened afterward. Everytime I try to think about it, my head suddenly hurts like someone is slamming a hammer at it.

And not just my head either, my body seems really sore, it's like having a truck rammed at my body, but it failed to kill me for good. I can still move my arms, although barely, but that's still not enough to help push me up from my comfortable bed.

"Damn it…"

My head really hurts, my body also hurts. I never drink alcohol before, but maybe this is what hangover feels like when I'm old enough to drink. Though it's rather strange, I don't remember drinking any drops of beer or wine, I was too busy fending for my life to have that kind of leisure.

But, the question is: What happened during that time which resulted in this kind of situation?

No matter how hard I think, no matter how determined I try to get past the pain to search through my foggy mind, I can't seem to get any useful memory out of my head. Something must had happened, I know it did, there's no way I can easily forget something like that if it did happen.

"It hurts."

I mumble. I touch my temple to ease the pain inside my head. It doesn't feel like having a simple truck hit you and you're still alive afterward, it feels more like having a functional battle tank dropped on you from the air and you're still alive afterward. Okay, that may be a little bit exaggerated, but the feeling is similar to what I just described. While the pain is present, my body seems to be intact with no kind of wounds nor scars present. A phantom pain? Maybe…

Staying in bed forever won't help me find out what happened. I try getting myself up once again, the pain does not make it easy, but I went through worse to even think about trying to give up. By the time I can sit however, I find out my resolve can be easily broken by the sheer pain I'm experiencing. For once, I think I really need to take it easy.

But there is a reward for trying so hard despite the pain. The view around the room becomes clearer when I manage to get myself up from the bed. The same plain infirmary tended by no one, the same coldness of the winter air, the same eerie moon hanging on the sky. The familiar setting makes it rather confusing to the point I think all that happened prior the siege was just a dream, and the dreamer has just woken up.

But her presence at the bed next to mine tells me it was not a dream.

Deborah…Draconis.

The faint moonlight makes it hard for me to notice her when I was still bedridden, she was on the bed next to me from the start all along. The same long red hair, the same silky skin, what is lacking is her daily nastiness, but that is to be expected from a sleeping beauty. I'm not really privy on her sleeping face, so this is the first time for me, but her look during sleep is so…peaceful, as if her dream is devoid of the pain and suffering that made up this world.

Suddenly, my chest hurts. My heart starts to rapidly beating faster than normal. The sound gets louder and clearer to the point I think I'm listening to my heartbeat through the earpiece of an Mp3 player. And now, my chest feels like it's burning, like a fire just gets lit inside my heart. My body starts sweating, my vision gets blurry. My head hurts even more.

But now I understand why, because the memory from that time starts to conveniently flow back inside my head.

"So that was…what happened…"

I grab my chest in a futile attempt to ease the pain as I recall the events of that time.

Deborah went berserk, and I followed Nilrem to save her from herself. I tried my best, but failed to make Deborah snap out of her mad state.

And I died…by Deborah's hand. Her punch made a big hole in my chest, destroying my heart and everything around it.

That was my last memory of that day, which makes my head hurts both figuratively and literally as I try to make sense of the current situation.

I died. I can still remember the pain during that moment. But I can't deny the fact that I'm currently alive. I think about pinching myself to see whether or not this is a dream, but the pain across my body is more than enough for me to know it's not. Let's say this is a very realistic dream, then what is this place? The afterlife? It looks awfully plain for a place where the dead gather.

If, just if, this is the afterlife, then does that mean Deborah also died together with me?

If she did die, then what was the meaning of everything I did?

Despite my own questions about how I survived being killed, I'm more concern of Deborah's welfare. If I can't make sense of things on my own, maybe she can help.

"Hey, wake up."

Despite my words, the girl still stays immobile on her bed. Of course, she's deeply asleep, merely saying won't be enough to wake her up.

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

I shout out loud, which prompts no reaction from the sleepyhead in question. Usually this is enough to get her up from her bed and makes her start yelling in anger, but this time, she's still deep in her sleep, without any signs of waking up. Is she playing a prank on me, or is it because of something else…?

I start to get anxious. In a brief moment, the pain inside my body disappears as I rush out of my bed and approach Deborah's. She looks like she's sleeping, but from a closer look, there are signs telling me she's not. For one, there isn't a body movement to indicate she's breathing in her sleep, or any other body movements at all. Rather than sleeping, she's just lying there…like an emotionless corpse.

"No…no…!"

Fear rises inside my chest as I touch Deborah's bare hand. There's no reaction from her, but I feel some warmth through our hands touching. The lack of reaction even makes me feel more worried.

And so, I decide to do the unthinkable.

"Just to be sure…"

That's only what I tell myself, but it doesn't change the fact that what I'm going to do is really outrageous. I'm going to check her heartbeat with my hand, but that of course requires my hand to touch her chest…

But this isn't the time for jokes. I'm being serious here. The fear I have from doing this barely outweighs the fear I'll gain from not doing it.

I put my hand to where Deborah's heart ought to be, just above her chest.

What I feel from this action…is nothing.

No heartbeat, with complete stillness. Aside from Deborah's warmth, there is no sign of her life activity. Despite my prior action, she doesn't get mad and yell at me for being a pervert, she just lies there motionlessly like a corpse.

Is Deborah…dead?

My heart hurts, my chest feels like it's burning. My body feels weird. I know it's normal to feel pain after being wounded so many times, but this pain…it's too abnormal, as if it's not merely an afterthought from my wounds and has a will of its own to know when to act up. I kneel down from the pain, my chest feels like it's going to explode!

"No…wait a minute…"

That day…my chest did explode, thanks to Deborah's rage and fist. But then why am I still here? Nobody could had survive a wound like that, no…most would had died solely the moment Deborah's fist went through their chest.

But I'm still alive…

"It couldn't be…"

Deborah's motionless body, my completely unharmed chest, put two and two together and the answer becomes obvious, and terrifying…

While I'm still in shock from the revelation, I hear the sound of the door opening. I turn back to see who's coming at this kind of time, and to no surprise, it's Nilrem the Headmaster. She's always one to show up at the right time and the right place, the answers I seek lie within her head.

The woman doesn't say anything when our gaze meets. As I grab my chest in pain, I try to stand up from the ground for the following talk to happen. I feel like everything Nilrem needs to know can already be picked up from visual cues alone, so I think it's fine to drop the formalities and get to the main point.

"Why, Nilrem? Why did you trade her life for mine!?"

---------------------------

「West of Melas castle – before the end of the siege」

Time seemed to stop when the dragon girl pushed her punch through the chest of her familiar. In a brief second, snow stopped falling, fire stopped burning, people stopped dying. In such a moment, there were only two people in this world.

The dragon, and her latest victim.

The blood filled eyes returned to their original color, a sign of sanity after such an insane action. And what did she see after the dragon girl finally regained her mind?

A familiar whose chest had been destroyed by her hand, and his peaceful face looking at her as if he forgave this very heinous action.

The girl's expression changed, her eyes widened, her mouth full of fangs closed, and her fear rose as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"ARGHHHHHHHHHH!"

Not a scream of pain, at least not physically, but it wasn't hard to imagine why she did so.

And time seemed to continue again, the young familiar's body dropped down to the snowy ground, right through Deborah's arm that was previously the bridge that connected the two of them. Blood gushed through the empty hole in his chest, dying the snow in red. His body was still twitching, but that was merely a body function during the moribund state. No one could survive with an empty hole in his chest, without a heart to fill the void inside.

A mad monster might feel nothing about this, but what stood before the dying familiar was no longer a mad monster, but a dragon girl whose mind had returned to normal. What did she feel knowing it was her hand that put an end to the one who tried to save her from her own rage and madness?

The sheer shock paralyzed Deborah from reacting or doing anything, like a living corpse which lost its mind. A perfectly vulnerable target for someone with the intent to kill her to take their chance, someone like Nilrem.

From a far, an object came flying. It shaped like a spear, but when its tip pierced through Deborah's own heart, it revealed itself to be a wooden magic staff with an enchanted gem at the top. When flying in high speed, even the tip of a wooden staff could still be a deadly. Deborah groaned from the sudden pain, but for the dragon girl, that staff was just the beginning.

From every direction, magic staves came flying at Deborah like spears fired from ballistas. Soon, the staves pierced all of her vitals point, turning her into a living pincushion. But Deborah still moved, despite the blood flown from her mouth, despite having her heart pierced through, Deborah still lived.

If this was all Nilrem can do then it was very disappointing for someone known as the Archsage, but of course, all the magic staves were merely a prelude for what to come.

The sky above darkened as clouds started to gather, and from the cloud, a huge bolt of lightning fell down to strike Deborah. Her whole body brightened from the shock, and Deborah yelled from the sheer pain of having a lightning bolt burning through her very being. But her tragedy had yet to end, for another lightning bolt came crashing, and another, and another after another, all of them precisely struck down Deborah without missing their target as if Deborah was a living lightning attractor, but if one was well versed in magic, they would find out it was the staves that pierced her body that were the real lightning rods.

After taking barrages after barrages of lightning, all in a brief moment, Deborah was toasted completely from inside to outside, the smell of burnt skin and flesh dominated the air around her. Deborah fell to the ground, though she simply kneeled rather than completely dropped down, all thanks to the staves on her body acting as support. But aside from that, the dragon girl was motionless, almost look like she was finally dead for good.

And only at this moment did Nilrem choose to make her presence known. With all the strength in her legs, the Headmaster rushed to the side of the young familiar who lay on the snow. The moment she got close to him, Nilrem kneeled down while casting healing magic with the staff on her hand and used the other to check his pulse. His body was still twitching, there was a faint life force inside his pulse, but it was getting weaker, not even the warmth of the green light radiated from Nilrem's staff could save him, the least it could do was to extend his already waning life for a few seconds at most. It was a surprise for Nilrem to realize even after all that went through, Akuma had not die instantly, despite the huge hole in his chest. Although at this point, not even Nilrem herself could save him, Akuma was already beyond saving.

'Was it because of his connection with Deborah?'

Such thought crossed Nilrem's mind when she thought about how he could still hang on this long, but it was meaningless, Akuma would die regardless. The longer she continued casting the healing magic, the longer his suffering became.

"I'm sorry…for dragging you into this mess…"

Nilrem closed her eyes in regret as the green light from her staff faded away. But before she even had a chance to grieve for her student, her ears caught sounds of movement, and the Headmaster immediately pointed her staff toward the source of the sound: The moving figure of Deborah, who was dragging herself to Nilrem's location despite being a living pincushion heavily burnt from lightning. Her burnt face rapidly healed themselves back, with her darkened skin quickly replaced itself with the white skin she had prior, but that was only her face, the rest of her body was still grievously wounded beyond recognition. Deborah being alive was already a wonder by itself, let alone moving toward Nilrem in her heavily wounded state.

Nilrem's face was visibly and understandably shocked, the attack earlier was made with most of her remaining soul energy as fuel, she barely had enough left in store to be a threat if Deborah was still in her hostile frenzied state. The lightning bolts messed up Deborah's hair, which blocked away Deborah's own eyes and made it hard for Nilrem to analyze whether the Deborah before her was her student...or her foe.

Deborah raised her right scaled arm. A drop of cold sweat flown down from Nilrem's forehead. The witch was fully prepared to sacrifice her current vessel, but even then, it would render everything she did today and Akuma's sacrifice meaningless.

However, all of those thoughts quickly became irrelevant as Deborah did not strike Nilrem with her dragon arm, but simply removed the staff piercing her heart. As the wooden staff fell down the snowy ground, it left a small hole on Deborah's chest with red blood naturally flowing out. Just when Nilrem thought things would not get crazier than this, she found herself proven wrong by an action that made it hard to judge whether Deborah had regained her sanity or not.

With her dragon arms, Deborah broadened the hole on her chest, she tore it off, despite the endless stream of blood gushing out, despite the fleshes she threw out to make a way, despite the girl herself tried to keep her scream from escaping her throat, Deborah still did all that, solely to pave the path leading to her own heart. And despite every logics in the world preventing someone to do the same, Deborah thrust her hand inside the hole she made and ripped her own heart in flesh and blood out of her chest.

"You…!"

Even Nilrem was afraid. Of course, anyone would be afraid when someone ripped out their own heart with their own hand, and the heart in question was still beating as if it was still inside Deborah's chest, even with a hole on itself thanks to Nilrem's wooden magic staff. Even so, Deborah's heart kept beating, and the bleeding hole on the heart healed itself back to normal and resumed beating like nobody's business.

Nilrem had seen her fair share of insanity in her long life, but none of them ever matched the action made before her eyes by Deborah.

Despite having her heart ripped out with her own hand, Deborah continued to drag herself toward Nilrem with her heart held toward to the front, almost like an offering. Nilrem did not understand what's going on…until Deborah herself spoke for the first time.

"Please…use this…and save him…"

Tears dropped down from Deborah's eyes. Her long hair had conveniently made way for Nilrem to see Deborah's face. The face of a dragon maddened by bloodlust had been replaced by a scared crying girl, afraid of losing someone she held dear. This was the first time Nilrem ever saw Deborah crying, the girl was too prideful to cry in front of someone, but this time…

"Please! Save him…! I don't…want him to die…!"

Deborah yelled as she tearfully offered her heart to Nilrem. The Headmaster herself still had yet to fully grasp Deborah's action, but she quickly finished the puzzle when she remembered her own studies about dragons as a race.

A dragon's heart was the source of a dragon's life, a focus of their life force. A dragon fed off the soul energies in the world of Airumel to sustain their life and heal their injuries, but ultimately the source of their very being lied in their heart. A dragon would die when their heart was completely destroyed, and Nilrem failed to do that despite the chance given by Akuma's sacrifice. Ultimately, what Deborah offered was to merge Akuma's fading life force to her own in an attempt to save him from death.

It was a very risky action, nor it would be a guaranteed success, if it did work, it would be a miracle, but at this point, the only thing that could save Akuma was nothing short of a miracle.

Nilrem no longer had any hesitation, she quickly grabbed Deborah's heart and resumed casting her healing spell to lengthen Akuma's fading life force. Nilrem gave Deborah's heart a quick glance, it was a normal heart from a brief total view, but if one looked carefully, they could see a small fire burning inside her heart. An abnormal heart for an abnormal existence, and now, it would be used to save an abnormal familiar using an abnormal method.

"I'm too old for this madness…!"

Nilrem put the heart toward the place where Akuma's heart used to reside, she quickly chanted her spell with the support of her magic staff. As the arcane words came out of Nilrem's mouth, a golden magical thread appeared out of the edge of Akuma's empty chest and bound the heart offered by Deborah. And soon after, more golden threads came out to join their brethren and together they kept Deborah's heart in check. When Nilrem let go of her bloodstained hand, Deborah's heart stayed hover in the air thanks to the magical threads that connected the heart with Akuma's own life force.

The emergency heart transfusion seemed to be working, as the empty hole slowly, but surely, started to mend itself with regenerating flesh. Akuma's life force was still faint like a flicker, but it was no longer fading out of existence. Only time might tell whether this insane method would work.

Nilrem turned her gaze toward Deborah. The dragon girl was unexpectedly quiet, she had already stopped moving and entered a deep sleep. The wound on her chest had already stopped bleeding and was mending themselves back to normal just like Akuma's own wound. It was ambiguous if Deborah was still alive after offering her heart for another.

One witch, and two young people with an empty hole in their chest. When she thought about it, Nilrem found such a sight amusing, but she was too tired to even put on a smile or laugh. After all she went through, the Archmage found herself reaching the limit of her own power, both physically and mentally.

From afar, a magical flare rose to the air. A yellow flare, signal for ceasefire to negotiate accorded to the international war codes. Judging from the place where it came from, Nilrem guessed it was fired by the humans. A perfect time, with the frenzied dragon out of the sight, the two sides could finally conduct negotiations without any interruption. That was assuming the demons even wanted to negotiate when they could still fight until the humans were all dead. The siege was over, and they were the victors, there was seemingly no reason for them to stop.

"Jeez…working me to the bone…"

But ultimately, as the leader of Melas, the choice lied in Nilrem's decision, and she responsed by using the last ounce of her soul energy to cast a yellow flare up above the sky. With this, an unspoken truce had been made, no further bloodshed until the two sides had done arguing with each other.

There were a lot of things that needed to be done, and for a start, how would a lone old and tired woman relocate two dying teenagers in the middle of nowhere back to Melas castle?

That was probably a story that would never be told.