A heavy silence followed the snowstorm.
Only the sound of the wind remained, that sharp whistle audible from meters away, as if passing directly through the bones. The cold was bitter... undeniably bitter. The dense trees stretching along the forest looked exhausted themselves; many had been shattered under the storm's weight.
In the middle of this harsh whiteness, a small, slightly damaged wooden cabin stood, looking like it had miraculously survived.
Inside the cabin, there was a young man.
His black hair was messy over his forehead, and his features were sharp but weary. His eyes were a dark brown, almost black. He was deep in a heavy sleep... until he was awakened by the sound of footsteps. Not a few steps, but dozens... far more than dozens.
Then came a powerful voice, strange words he didn't understand, echoing outside the cabin.
Curiosity drove him to approach the window, and there he saw them:
Hundreds of soldiers, all in the highest readiness for attack. The front ranks were led by a young woman with long black hair, her clothes clearly revealing her high rank above everyone else.
In those same moments, Hikaru tried to grasp what was happening.
Cabin? Snow? Hundreds of soldiers? A language he didn't know? What the—?
He took two steps forward, smiling with manufactured confidence, raising his right hand toward the young fighter.
He simply concluded that... he was drunk.
Perhaps he had drunk so much that he was starting to hallucinate. He let out a light, short laugh, but it didn't complete.
Suddenly, a sharp, flashing pain... a pain that robbed him of feeling in his body for a full second.
When his consciousness returned, he found the fighter directly in front of him, wiping the remaining blood from her sword.
Blood...?
He looked down. There was a penetrating wound in his abdomen, and his consciousness was slowly draining from him, as if someone was gradually turning off his internal light.
"Well... I guess the drink was authentic..."