Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria - Volume 12 - Chapter Pr

PROLOGUE THE FINAL SCENE IN HER MIND’S EYE 

She could see a crown of light—a ring of bright, scattered motes suspended in the air, woven together to create a white stairway ascending to the heavens. 
They had promised to see this together—which meant this had to be an illusion. Her battered consciousness should have already slipped away, but it showed her this fragile, transient, final hallucination reflected in her eyes. Though only a sliver of a dream, it was still so beautiful. 
Even if it was a trick of the eye, she had conviction that it was lovelier than anything she had ever seen. 
It was the Elf Ring in Lefiya’s home forest. 
She could hear a miserable voice. A ceaseless lamentation. A plaintive wail of regret and grief that reached the very heavens. A howl coming from that girl’s soul. 
She was inconsolable, knowing she was the one who’d made this girl cry. It broke her heart to have hurt her. 
No matter how much I want to, I can’t stop those tears from falling. It would be impossible to soothe that gaping wound that you will shoulder for as long as you continue to live. 
There’s so much I want to tell you. There is more I wanted you to know. But I know I’ll never get the chance. 
I won’t ever be able to talk to you again. I won’t ever be able to use this voice. I won’t ever be able to sing another song. 
Her body was disappearing, turning to dust. Her thoughts were losing their direction. 
Don’t cry. Keep moving. 

But in all my departing musings, I cannot bring myself to ask you to forget me. And that is my greatest weakness. My lingering attachments. My crazed thoughts. 
I know I don’t have any right, but I can’t help but ask—please begin to smile again… 
She could see relentless rain. Unfairly beautiful, a cruel purity, something more precious than anything else in the world. Those unbroken raindrops and tears that caught the light transformed into a tune that made her heart tremble. 
Straying from rhyme and reason, the last remnants of her consciousness were fading away. 
The scene before her drifted farther into the distance. 
She was starting to lose her grasp of the girl’s presence. 
Even her impure heart and body were shut away in an all-white space. She would forget everything. 
Which was why…Which was the only reason why she made one last request to that crown of light. 
If miracles exist, then all I ask is this. In exchange for my atonement, let me become fragments of light, pouring down on her shoulders, even after my body and spirit leave no trace in this world. For her, let me always— 
For the one like a flower that would wilt at the slightest touch, I want to— 
She offered up that final prayer to the heavens, the one place she had sworn never to look for aid again.