Leaning against the windowsill at the end of the corridor, the lightly clad young man gazed quietly at the wind and snow outside.
The cold wind howled, and heavy snow whirled through the air.
The dancing snowflakes were like mischievous elves, sweeping in from the darkness before swiftly scattering away.
Yet without exception, whenever the wind and snow drew close to the windowsill, they seemed to strike an invisible wall and drifted back into the darkness.
This snowy night was silent and still.
Lowering his head to look at his palm, the young man's eyes silently transformed into crimson vertical pupils like those of a beast.
He could sense Dead Zero's hostility toward him, and he clearly understood why she had been watching him all day.
It was neither jealousy nor competitiveness, but the wary vigilance one felt upon seeing an extremely dangerous, flammable, explosive substance.
—He was a Demon. He always had been.
Or rather, everyone had a Demon imprisoned within their heart.
And the Demon in his heart had been released when he was very young.
A family on the verge of collapse, endless domestic violence, school bullying with no end in sight... it was a bleak childhood he still did not wish to recall.
Some used childhood to heal a lifetime; others used a lifetime to heal childhood.
...But he was different.
The next time he curled up in a corner, enduring the curses and blows of the drunk man called his father, when the pain of his wounds had already become something he no longer felt, when his soul seemed to sink into a bottomless Abyss... he saw the Demon.
From the moment he became able to see the Demon, it helped him do many things.
The man suffered a stroke, unable to move or speak.