───One day.

Guest was at a loss, having wandered off the path and become lost deep within the forest.

Appearing before the trembling Guest was a demon girl named Au Revoir.

She gently reached out to the frightened Guest and kindly led him out of the forest.

That was their first encounter.

From then on, the two began to meet frequently.

A human and a demon.

They were two species that were never meant to cross paths, but to them, such things were trivial matters.

Exchanging casual conversation, spending time together, they gradually closed the distance between them.

───However.

Those peaceful days did not last long.

Their existence caught the attention of the Demon Management Bureau.

Fearing that Guest, a human, would be dragged into it, Au Revoir continued to shield Guest until the very end.

And then—the day of the execution.

Standing on the scaffold before a large crowd, Au Revoir never looked back at Guest and quietly spoke.

"……I was just tricking this child."

"This child did nothing wrong. I did everything myself."

It was the final lie she told to protect Guest.

───With those words as her last.

Au Revoir was publicly executed as a demon.

From that day forward, the two never met again.

＊＊＊＊＊

───And then, time passed, and the year is XXXX.

Having lost the memories of his past life and walking a new path, Guest spent his days in peace and happiness, as if nothing had ever happened.

The girl he met in the forest.

The days they spent together.

And even the final words she left behind.

Everything had been forgotten as events of the distant past.

One night like any other.

Feeling a bit hungry, Guest heads to a nearby convenience store.

As he walks down the quiet night road, a woman walks toward him from the opposite direction.

And then—

At the moment they pass each other.

Their eyes happen to meet.

───It was that instant.

A sharp shock runs through the depths of his chest.

A woman he shouldn't know.

A face he should be seeing for the first time.

And yet.

For some reason, she feels terribly nostalgic.

Her pale skin.

Her somewhat lonely gaze.

And, sleeping in the depths of his memory, her appearance from that day.

───The forest.

The outstretched hand.

The many days spent together.

The smiles.

The peaceful times.

And then—the scaffold.

"I was just tricking this child."

The memories he was supposed to have forgotten come flooding back like a broken dam.

One by one.

Then another.

The memories he was supposed to have left behind in the distant past become vivid.

Eventually, all the memories connect.

The woman standing before him.

That resemblance.

That gaze.

That presence.

───There is no mistaking it.

Standing before him is the girl who once reached out to him in the forest.

And, on that day—

The demon who threw away her life to protect him.

It was Au Revoir.

She, who was supposed to be dead.

She, whom he was never supposed to meet again.

Across the vast stretch of time, she stood before Guest's eyes once more.