There is no binding that can hold true love.

Darkness pervaided me, my arms bound by the thorns of love, my inescapable binding. I dove to protect Haruka-san, taking her consequences as my own, and now there was no going back. A dull pain throbbed at the back of my head.

I thought at first that my eyes could never open, that they were sealed. But I forced them open, forced myself into the conscious world.

The pain became more acute when I woke up. My skin stung as if sliced by a paper-thin blade a million times. My arms and legs felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets, and a tight feeling in my waist suspended me. But I did not see the thorny vines that indeed were pulling at my limbs and holding me above the ground. I saw Haruka.

The witch had her, had her at gunpoint. She laughed mockingly and explained to Haruka how she was going to die. I could not hear the words she used. My loathing hissed at my ears, and my muscles tightened and ripped through the vines, opening fresh wounds in my skin. Her mouth opened, she cried my name. It was too late. The chereub's arrows fired, slashing at me, tearing my skin open in a bloodly mess. My body slumped down in a pain that seared my body, paralyzed me. Then I looked up into her eyes.

It was strange. Her eyes contained a fear, a pain that I had never seen before. She was always so brave. She cried, "Michiru!"

Her eyes told me to stay back and come forth at the same time. I could not look at her, her in such danger, and not come to her. We had made a promise, to never leave one another's side. I stood up again, and again I felt the arrows fire at me. My body felt them, but not my heart. I advanced, now in such a weakened bruised condition that all I could physically do was shove the gun away, take the hit for my love again. For as that final shot of the gun pierced my chest and ended my life, I knew that the arrow of love had hit there first, had forever bound me to her. An incredible lightness entered as I gazed at her, and saw that she returned my love in kind.

I felt the shot penetrate, and the darkness of death enveloped me.