Taking a few more steps, Leonard almost fell if he hadn't braced himself on the broken sword.
"Almost…"
He felt a pang of sadness staining the vast white field with his own grime.
Though he wanted to be there, part of him rejected the thought of sullying those countless white flowers with his dirt.
He couldn't quite recall, but Leonard had the distinct impression that these flowers once meant something to him, a memory finally starting to surface.
They were white azaleas — the same flowers that once adorned a vase beneath his grandmother Morgiana's hospital room window, the same blooms that had witnessed her passing.
"No way… Grandma…" Leonard dropped to his knees among the flowers, tearing some from the ground and bringing them close to his nose.
Tears traced slow rivers down the young man's battered face, as sadness mingled with a strange joy, even if the reason behind this place was still unknown. It felt like a tribute to his grandmother.
Of course, it made no logical sense — but what meaning was there in this whole life anyway? Turning his gaze toward the full moon high above, Leonard felt strangely at home, not a physical home, but something intangible — a sentimental home.
"Grandma, you meant everything to me. Calli and I have been broken since you left…"
He lowered his head, sitting cross-legged, knees brushing against the soft petals. It wasn't the right moment, but perhaps these were the last moments he would ever feel a place so beautiful, akin to Morgiana's smile and presence.
"Since Sophie disappeared, a few years after you, I've been taking care of them both." Through sobs and gasps, Leonard wiped his running nose with the back of his hand.
"Everything has been so hard lately… They grow up so fast, and I'm so tired, Grandma… Sometimes, I just want to scream all my feelings to the world, but I give up, especially since she got pregnant with James…"
His crying was cleansing, as if his grandmother was watching him even though he couldn't see her, somewhere beyond.
"I've been weak all this time… hiding, sneaking around to avoid being seen, afraid to be confronted… I've become everything you showed me not to be — a coward…"
With his left arm, he tried to wipe tears from his face, but the river of sobs didn't ease.
"Since you left, Calli has become colder… That smile, I would give everything to see that genuine smile again, but your leaving made everything so difficult."
Words failed to capture the depth of his feelings, but Leonard pressed on, utterly exhausted, haunted by the torment of recent hours.
"I don't understand this damn burden the world keeps piling on me, Grandma… I've had to lie to James, telling him Sophie just went on a long trip, afraid of how he'd react if he knew she just abandoned us without a single word."
Moonlight bathed him more with each passing moment. The sky, whatever time it was, had cleared its clouds, replaced by total darkness save for the glowing moon.
"This whole burden… I came to this damn place without knowing why, faced humiliation after humiliation, and I should already be dead. Every cursed corner of this land was a trial meant to kill me. Why? Tell me, Grandma. Why does it feel like the whole world is against me?" He raised his gaze to the moon again as petals floated up, dancing in a beautiful ballet.
"Is it because of that damn book? The one that just vanished without a trace? Why only me? What did I do to deserve this burden?"
Covering his face with both hands, he desperately tried to wipe away his tears.
"Is it because of these cursed eyes? If I tore them out, would this torment finally end?!"
He slammed his forehead onto the ground in a headbutt. Tears, petals, and blood stained the beauty of that field. But it wasn't in vain. He lifted his bloodied face, feeling an ethereal hand touch beneath his left eye, wiping away the tears.
The touch was the same texture as his grandmother's caress, and Leonard's entire body calmed instantly. Though it was just a simple touch to dry his tears, it reminded him of lying in her warm, loving lap as a child.
"Grandma, are you really here? Everything's so… hard without your smile."
What had seemed a touch was just a petal from that beautiful flower that meant so much to him, stained with blood and fallen before him.
"Each one of these… they all remind me of you. If I could… if I could, I'd stay here forever with you…"
Collapsed beneath the pale moonlight, he forgot every moment he'd felt useless, swallowed by an unsettling sense of eternity. In his mind, the moment stretched into an unprecedented infinity, and he knew it well.
"You will stay forever in my memory, Grandma… but it's time to end this." Leonard drew his sword from the flowers and slashed forward, revealing what was truly about to happen.
The image fractured, revealing a crimson moon hanging high in the sky, tinged with scarlet red, like the blood dripping from Leonard's forehead. Without the Eternal Vision, he might have died at that very second.
Before Leonard, now a bit farther away, stood a figure resembling a skeleton draped in a black cloak. Though the rest of the body was visible, the face was obscured by the hood. But what really stood out was the enormous scythe in its hands — nearly twice the size of the deathly specter itself.