Faiz Prologue

Mari Sonoda hated the snow.

Especially the snow that fell on Christmas. 

Mari was watching the white shells fluttering down from the night sky as her breath clouded a small window in Ryusei School.  

She wanted the snow to stop. 

She wanted Christmas to just go away. 

Behind her was a fireplace burning with a warm fire, a fully decorated tree shining with seven different colors, and the rest of the Ryusei School children getting ready for the party.  

They brought in fried chicken and Christmas cake all while laughing amongst each other. 

This was Mari’s 8th Christmas. 

Christmas was fun for her up to the 6th one. 

On the day of her 7th Christmas, Mari lost her parents. 

 

On that day, Mari and her parents headed out to a restaurant in a hotel and got caught up in a fire. 

Mari was the only one that survived. 

After being rescued from of the terrible smoke and flames, Mari was forced to witness the corpses of her parents being carried out of the burnt hotel that resembled a giant looming gravestone.  

The blackened scorched corpses of her mother and father. 

Suddenly snow had begun to fall. 

The snow fell onto the corpses and slowly melted. 

It felt as if the mother and father’s desire to live was still burning within them.

As if they rejected the idea of their faces being covered with white. 

 

That was why Mari hated Christmas. 

She hated the snow. 

But Mari was probably the only person in Ryusei School that felt that way. 

The room filled with everyone else’s cheerful voices as proof of that. 

To the lonely children who found themselves in lonely circumstances just like Mari, Christmas was a joyous once-per-year event.  

An orphanage that took care of children who lost their parents── that was the Ryusei School.  

 

Amongst the voices of laughter, a voice of weeping eventually could be heard. 

Masato Kusaka was being bullied again. 

He wasn’t being bullied for any specific reason, he was just bullied because people felt like it. 

The small boy with asthma simply was an easy target for bullying. 

The boys bullying Masato wouldn’t listen to anyone, including even the prettiest girl among the students, Saya Kimura, who warned them to stop. 

As Masato continued to cry, his asthma began acting up and his face was covered with tears and snot. 

 

In the end, it was always Mari who came to Masato’s rescue. 

Sometimes that ended up with Mari being bullied as well, but she didn’t care at all. 

In fact, the bullies were often caught off guard over how headstrong she was in defying them. 

Every time Masato Kusaka was saved by Mari, he’d wipe his tears, make a shy smile, and scratch the back of his ears as if to downplay the situation he just went through. 

Mari had seen that expression and those gestures of his many times by now. 

It was only natural that the two of them became best friends within Ryusei School. 

Masato didn’t understand why Mari always came to his rescue, though. 

Mari did have a reason for that, and it was because of a promise that she had kept secret. 

 

On the day both her parents died in the hotel fire, Mari had somehow made it out alive. 

After being separated from her parents, she had her hand held by someone who guided her through the white smoke. 

That hand belonged to a boy even younger than Mari that she had never met before. 

With Mari being unable to walk anymore, the boy carried her as he moved forward through the flames and smoke. 

Mari could do nothing but cling onto his back with her eyes and teeth clenched shut.
She could feel the boy’s heartbeat. 

It was as if it was the only ray of light that could be made out within the darkness. 

By the time she realized it, she was standing outside of the hotel. 

The boy that saved Mari was nowhere to be seen. 

All she was left with was her memories of the warmth of his back and his heartbeat.  

 

Even after getting over her grief from losing her parents, she still couldn’t forget that boy. 

Mari had begun to feel like that boy’s existence was a manifestation of some kind of mysterious power. 

A mysterious but righteous power… Mari wished that she had that power within her. 

She wanted to live strongly. To live justly. 

At some point, that became her promise to that boy. 

To live strongly and justly. 

That was why she rescued Masato. 

Mari had never told anyone about that promise before. 

And she likely never would. 

But Mari had no idea just how difficult of a promise she had made. 

Nor did she fully understand what making a promise meant. 

 

A true promise never fails to find ways to throw the lives of people into disarray again and again even after it has been forgotten.

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