"The girl with amber eyes shall hunger for all things. Her name will be erased, her will devoured. And the one she loves most
shall be the blade that ends her."
The prophecy dissolved like breath against glass—whispered, ancient, merciless.
And Meki Fortuna…
listened.
Her trembling hand slipped from the dusty book she held as the final line seared itself into her mind.
The cavern-light flickered against her cheeks, making the tears there gleam.
The title of the book read; Gospel Of Kaito.
"Master…I'm going to die."
Not someday.
Not maybe.
Not potentially.
I am going to die.
And Tatsuya is going to be the one to kill me.
Her pulse stuttered, the world tilting.
She stumbled back, boots scraping against cold stone, her breath forming painful clouds in the freezing air.
At first, she felt fear.
Raw, primal terror clawing into her ribs.
But then—slowly, horribly—another sensation eclipsed it.
Relief.
Meki pressed her forehead against the cold cavern wall, trying to drown her shaking breath.
"If I… if I don't die…"
Her voice cracked.
"…I'll keep becoming a monster."
A real one.
A monster whose hunger would tear villages apart, swallow hope whole, devour the innocent and the guilty alike.
And when she saw the vision—
When she saw herself, twisted and smiling, drenched in blood—
Her soul recoiled.
"I don't want that… I don't want to hurt anyone…"
Her knees buckled.
She slid to the floor, palms clutching her head.
"But if he kills me…"
Her breath caught.
"He could save the world."
That was the prophecy's cruel truth.
Her death wasn't a tragedy.
It was the salvation of everyone else.
"If I let him find me…If I stay close to him…
Then when the time comes—He will strike the final blow."
The Fiend of Gluttony will lose its vessel.
And the world will be safe.
No matter what it does to him.
No matter how much it destroys him.
No matter how much she—
Her throat tightened.
"…I love him."
And that was the cruelest part.
Because the prophecy didn't lie.
Tatsuya would kill her.
Because she would choose to die by his hand.
Many years later.
She waited….
Waited…..
Waited….
And….waited, for 200 years she waited.
Caged into an endless cycle off hoping that the next day the boy will come and falling into the same sin over and over again.
Until she saw the light. And his presence filled the world, the Reborn Demon, the one who would take her life.
Meki looked at it and wondered, "have you foreseen this too, master?"
Months later.
The snowstorm raged over the town.
Her body was weak—partially drained from resisting Gluttony's influence, and partially because fate was already leeching the warmth from her veins.
She staggered into the alleyway, breath shallow, vision shaking.
"I have to look… wounded."
"I have to make him stop."
"I have to make him care enough to take me with him."
"…So he can end me when the time comes."
Her legs gave out.
She collapsed beside the overflowing dumpster, the cold sinking into her bones.
Snowflakes settled on her hair.
Her breath slowed.
She folded her arms around herself.
This is fine.
This is right.
This is how it has to be.
"If I stay here long enough… someone will find me."
She closed her eyes.
She waited.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Her consciousness drifted.
And then—
Footsteps.
Heavy.
Uneven.
Human.
Her eyes fluttered open.
A shadow leaned over her.
Young.
Gaunt.
Haunted.
His voice cracked as he whispered,
"…why?"
And in that moment—
The prophecy began to move.
Not because fate forced it.
Not because her vision commanded it.
But because Meki Fortuna, with eyes dimming, with frost on her lashes, with resolve carved into her bones, chose the boy who would one day kill her.
Chose him with her final shard of strength.
Because if she had to die—
If she had to be ended before corruption consumed her—
Then let it be by his hand.
Her lips trembled into the faintest smile.
"…Found you," she whispered.
Or perhaps—
Found me.
And she let her body go limp, falling into his arms, falling into fate, falling into the beginning of the end.
Part 2
Snow drifted softly through the pines that night, flakes falling with the silence of memories too gentle to speak aloud. Somewhere between the crackle of the cabin fire and the faint rhythm of the mountain winds, Meki felt her heart react to a warmth she thought had died long ago.
It was strange—how love could grow in a place where sunlight barely reached.
Stranger still that it had taken root in him.
She drew her knees to her chest, chin resting atop them, watching Tatsuya through the dancing glow of the fire. He was dozing, head drooped forward slightly, breath uneven from exhaustion. The blanket slipped from his shoulders, and even asleep his expression looked painfully burdened, as though nightmares lurked just under the surface.
Her fingers twitched. She wanted to get up, to pull the blanket back over him. To keep him warm the way he had kept her warm all those nights ago.
But her throat tightened.
Because every time she tried to say it—
Every time she tried to understand the feeling blooming in her chest—
She remembered what came before him.
Once, Meki thought affection was something you earned by being useful.
Fix the pot, and they won't shout today.
Mend the cloak, and maybe they'll let you sleep indoors.
Don't cry. Crying is pointless.
The world had taught her early that love was conditional. Cruel. Bargained.
And when the Demon Cult dragged her away, when their ropes bit into her skin and their magic left her hollow, she had accepted that she wasn't someone meant to be saved.
Her throat burned at the memory.
I was so sure I'd die.
So sure the world wouldn't even notice I was gone.
But then—
Bootsteps through mud.
A boy gasping for breath.
Hands—warm, trembling, desperate—pulling her from the darkness.
Tatsuya.
The name alone softened her breath.
He found me.
He found me when I didn't matter to anyone.
She remembered waking up in the cabin for the first time.
Her body limp. Her heartbeat faint.
But the fire—
The fire never went out.
She didn't know then that he stayed awake through the night for her sake.
Didn't know that every time the flames dimmed, he jolted awake with panic in his lungs.
Didn't know he whispered apologies each time he thought he wasn't enough to keep her alive.
She only knew that she was warm.
Safe.
Alive.
And that he kept coming back.
With food he didn't eat himself.
With blankets he tucked around her awkwardly.
With words he didn't know he was allowed to say.
Meki gripped her blanket now, the memory squeezing her chest.
"Tatsuya…" she whispered, her breath forming a pale cloud in the cold air.
"You don't even realize, do you… how much you saved me…"
He always looked away when she thanked him.
Always brushed off her gratitude.
Always insisted she was wrong.
But she wasn't.
Her love wasn't a spark.
It wasn't a sudden blaze of emotion.
It was a slow, steady fire—one he had unknowingly tended with every act of clumsy kindness.
She loved him…
Because when she couldn't stand, he carried her.
Because when she couldn't speak, he listened to her silence.
Because when she flinched at shadows, he pretended not to notice, giving her dignity instead of pity.
Because when she shrank from the world, he offered her a place in his—without asking for anything in return.
And most of all—
—because he looked at her like she mattered.
No one had ever done that.
No one.
Her eyes softened as she watched him sleep, the firelight brushing his tired features.
"I love you," she murmured, the words fragile but certain.
She hugged her blanket tighter, burying her face against her knees.
"I know you think you destroy everything you touch. But you're wrong. So wrong it hurts."
Her voice trembled, barely audible.
"You didn't destroy me, Tatsuya. You rebuilt me."
Snow shifted against the windowpane.
The fire crackled gently.
And Meki, with her heart bare in the quiet of the cabin, whispered a truth she could only say while he slept:
"I love you… because you gave me a reason to breathe again."
Outside, winter pressed close.
Inside, her warmth burned steady.
And for the first time in years, she believed warmth could stay.