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Epilogue

It was still before dawn, the time when the night is darkest. Yuuka stood in front of me blocking my path.

Not until a few minutes ago, her house was a regular one like you could find anywhere.

Now, it was devastated as though a storm had happened inside it.

The entrance was smashed, the hallway ravaged with cracks, and all the furniture in the eat-in kitchen where I was, was destroyed.

Fumes came out of the large refrigerator, the small table for four was split into seven parts, all of the furniture and appliances that once were in this area didn’t resemble their original shape anymore.

“Move away.”

I said as I casually lowered Crescent Moon’s Shadow---what had destroyed this entire place.

Yuuka’s face was contorted in fear, and behind her, her parents were sitting on the floor. They had been enduring more fear than they could handle as they shook incessantly without even being able to raise a scream while a liquid spread out from under them.

“Move.”

I repeated, but she shook her head.

“Why?” I asked, “It wouldn’t really matter if I were to kill them, would it? They are the sort of people that don’t matter whether they exist or not.”

“You can’t…do that, you can’t!”

She said scared, trembling, looking like she was about to break.

“You can’t kill…my mom and dad.”

Tears started welling up in her eyes as she started to beg.

“Please, don’t kill them.”

When she said that, I drained all emotion from my face.

Like un-thawing ice, a witch, or a curse, all names people had used to describe my cold face.

Yuuka started crying, but she still wouldn’t move out of the way.

“Alright then.”

I said turning around.

“Only because you’re being so courageous to stop me, I’ll leave it like this.”

As soon as I finished speaking I started walking to leave that destroyed house.

When I was a few steps away from the living room, I heard cries from behind me, and someone calling Yuuka’s name.

I didn’t look back.

When I crossed the front door I saw Kou, wearing pajamas apparently having ran here in a hurry. As soon as he saw me his body twitched for a moment, but soon after his young but brave face was filled with a sense of duty. And surprisingly kept walking closer.

“Big sis…Where’s Yuuka?”

“She’s inside.”

He walked around me at a considerable distance, like avoiding a carnivorous beast and carefully went behind me.

“Good luck, little prince.”

I whispered, but no one heard it.

After I left Yuuka’s home, I went to the outskirts of the city.

On my way there a fire truck passed by me, someone had probably called for it.

When I reached my destination, the silver wolf was waiting there for me.

“I’m done.” I told him.

He nodded, then said.

“You’ll probably be forever remembered by those children as some sort of calamity.”

“So?”

“Is that fine for you?”

“I don’t care about that, I probably won’t meet them again anyway. Whatever happens afterwards is their own problem. After all, I had no reason to care about them from the start.”

People can’t help other people, not even God can probably help them.

“In the end, it’s up to each person to take care of their own problems, there’s no way around that.”

He didn’t reply, so I just kept talking.

“What I did could be compared to an overused trick. The effect lasts for some time, but once a few years pass it wears off and it all returns to normal. I just did that because the situation was too perfect, that’s all.”

Listening to me, he sighed.

“In other words, you’re just embarrassed.”

“Shut up, idiot.”

I looked away to hide my face. It was probably already somewhat red, but the deep darkness hid it.

“I sort of like that side of you though.”

He spoke, looking completely unbothered after saying something like that.

Somehow, that made me think of something.

If I had been called a witch, un-thawing ice and a curse.

Then…what would this wolf be called?

I tried to say something, but stopped right after opening my mouth. It was a senseless question.

Instead, I said something else.

“Shall we go, then?”

“To a journey without a destination, huh.”

“There’s no destination, but we do have a goal.”

His eyes turned up to me looking like a puppy.

“To know who you are.”

But I knew that even if we were to get the answer to that, there would be no meaning in it.

The point of the journey wasn’t what we’d earn at the end, but in the process itself.

He had to see things by himself, receive things by himself, and find the answer himself.

But what kind of answer would it be in the end?

What would change?

Where did he come from, and where was he going to go?

“I guess I’ll be bothering you for a while.”

“I don’t care, it’s something I wished for myself.”

And also…

I couldn’t become human again, wasn’t entirely a wolf, and wasn’t a god either…Where was I going to go---

Shiro just looked at me in silence.

Only our eyes reflected each other.

The only thing I had ever truly received lay there.


~~~

When we were a couple of steps away from the city I noticed the light from the rising sun and turned around, staring at the surroundings.

The light coming from the east bathed the city that was so close, but lit like this it looked so far.

It was the city and the forest, both looked really far.

My heart wavered a bit at that distance.

A world without humans or wolves…

A world lonely to a point it was cruel, yet only then it would be completely perfect.

“…So beautiful.”

“Yeah, it’s a quite sorrowful beauty.”

Because it was sorrowful, it was beautiful.

And because it was beautiful, it was sorrowful.

Both were really similar things.

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