Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Accompanied by the meowing of a cat, the complete darkness was broken.

Not far away, a small window was pushed open by a furry paw. Along with the squeaking sound of friction, white light poured into the room like milk.

The cat jumped into the room through the gap. It looked like it was poured in along with the light.

Kanna Tomosuke squinted her eyes, which had been shrouded in darkness for a long time. It took her a while to adapt to the sudden change in light.

With the help of the light, she could finally see what the room she was trapped in looked like.

It was a long and narrow room that looked like a warehouse. The walls were so mottled that she couldn't tell what material they were made of.

She could vaguely see that the walls were made of cement. The floor was uneven and covered with a thick layer of dust.

At the corner of the wall, there were even thin green plants that stubbornly stuck out from the thin layer of dust.

The limited sunlight shone into the deeper part of the room, and it became even darker.

Over there, he could see many boxes of unknown contents stacked layer by layer in the shadows.

Fortunately, Kanna Tomosuke was sitting not far away from the small window that was opened. Beside the window, she could vaguely see a rusty door.

A door!

Kanna Tomosuke was overjoyed.

She had to stand up first!

She endured the pain all over her body and tried her best to use her uninjured right hand as leverage to move back and lean against the wall behind her.

With the wall as leverage, Kanna Tomosuke finally stood up with difficulty. The paint and dust on the wall fell down due to the shaking and landed on her face, body, and hair. Although Kanna Tomosuke was usually very careful about being clean and tidy, she couldn't care less at this moment.

After standing up, she could finally jump in front of the Door of Hope.

But she quickly realized that the iron door seemed to be much higher than it should be.

For Kanna Tomosuke, whose hands and feet were tied, even if the door wasn't locked, it was impossible for her to open it and jump over the threshold that was as high as her chest.

Moreover, she tried to push the door with her head — it didn't budge.

She couldn't open it.

"Sigh …" Kanna Tomosuke let out a long sigh.

Disappointed, she hopped away from the door and sat down at the foot of the narrower wall next to it.

"… Flaming Spark didn't seem to be in a good mood that day. You have to be careful during this period of time." Bombardment Scorch's serious expression appeared before her eyes again.

"Then — let's lock him up for now!" Flaming Spark's arrogant and malicious tone overlapped with his words.

"Sigh … That's true, but how can I be careful?"

Kanna Tomosuke muttered to herself as she recalled her conversation with Bombardment Scorch in the morning. She buried her head between her knees.

"Then … what should we do now?"

This place should still be within the school, right?

… Maybe I should wait for someone to discover this place and then let myself out?

But how long have I been unconscious? What time is it?

Xiao Hong should have noticed that I wasn't around, right?

But he doesn't know where I am.

And if I miss class, the teacher will also criticize me … Ah — what should I do?

Kanna Tomosuke's stomach rumbled.

Ah, I'm so hungry … Do I have to eat saury for lunch today … Ah, it would be so sad if I miss it!

With the rhythm of her hungry stomach, Kanna Tomosuke's mind began to wander again.

"Meow ~" A cat's meow brought her back to reality.

She took a closer look. It turned out that the cat had gone out of the small window and now came back with a kitten in its mouth.

Kanna Tomosuke noticed that the cat's fur was dark orange, which looked red under the sun.

When it passed by Kanna Tomosuke with the kitten in its mouth, it stared at her for a while. Seeing that she didn't seem to be dangerous, it lost interest and turned around to walk into the depths of the room.

In the depths of the room, in the shadow of the uneven piles of boxes, Kanna Tomosuke vaguely saw that the ground seemed to be covered with some withered grass and leaves. That should be the new home that the mother cat carefully prepared for her children.

Kanna Tomosuke watched it go back and forth through the small window. More and more kittens were properly placed in the warm nests covered with soft withered leaves and branches.

The last kitten was placed in the nest.

It looked bigger than the other kittens and had a more lively personality.

Its eyes were completely open, and it kept meowing. As soon as its energetic limbs landed on the ground, it began to explore the surroundings.

The mother cat lay down and put her swollen breasts in front of the kittens.

The kittens smelled their mother's milk fragrance, meowed noisily, and squeezed in one after another.

After feeding the kittens, the cat jumped out of the window again. It looked very busy.

It should be hungry too.

Kanna Tomosuke thought.

If only she could become a cat, she could nimbly jump out of the window and run to the school cafeteria to look for Uncle Yamada.

He liked small animals very much and was kind to people. If she was lucky, she might be able to eat today's saury.

Saury … While she was thinking, a harsh creaking sound suddenly came from the rusty iron door.

With a loud noise, the heavy door fell straight down, raising a cloud of dust.

Dazzling light poured in from the door, illuminating the narrow and long warehouse.

Kanna Tomosuke instinctively wanted to use her hands to block the dust in front of her face, but after a futile attempt, she remembered that her hands were tied and couldn't move.

Kanna Tomosuke was choked by the dust and coughed.

Just as she was about to look up at the person behind the door, she heard a familiar voice.

"Yo, isn't this Kanna Tomosuke?

You seem to be in such a pitiful state … "Blazing Hana was Kanna's" playmate "since kindergarten. She was currently smiling like an angel, but her eyes were filled with venomous malice.

"But, this is more suitable for you, isn't it?

Dirty gray rat? "

"Blazing -san, what do you want?" Kanna Tomosuke asked.

She still couldn't fully understand Flaming Spark's increasingly unpredictable emotions and escalating tricks.

But if it was because of the previous incident where she helped Xiao Hong out, Kanna Tomosuke secretly decided that she wouldn't apologize no matter what.

After all, using a flaw that others couldn't decide to hurt others wasn't something a hero would do.

"What do I want?" Flaming Spark sneered.

"Of course, I want to give you tutoring — so that you can properly understand what kind of person you are."

Flaming Spark's lackeys walked into the room and helped her untie the hemp ropes on Kanna Tomosuke's hands and feet and threw them aside.

Then, they took out lunch boxes from somewhere and poured the leftovers on the ground at Kanna Tomosuke's feet.

Among the scattered vegetables and rice, she could vaguely see a few bare fish bones — the saury from today's lunch.

"Eat, it's lunchtime now — you should be hungry, right?"

Flaming Spark stood at a high place and looked down at Kanna Tomosuke. She was satisfied to see that although her hands and feet were free, she still couldn't break free from the two lackeys' encirclement.

"Ah ~ You can't not eat, can you?

Don't be picky — aren't rats supposed to eat leftovers left behind by humans?

Look, there's saury — if you chew it carefully, you should be able to eat some minced meat, right? "

"Don't ask for too much, okay?"

One of the lackeys, the girl named Graviton, used a strange strength that was completely unlike a girl's to violently grab Kanna Tomosuke's hair and push her down.

Kanna Tomosuke knelt heavily on the ground. The sharp pain in her knees made her thoughts stagnate for a few seconds, and she even forgot to cry out in pain.

By the time she realized what was happening, she was already being pressed down. Her entire face was pressed against the leftovers, and the cold soup had already stained her face and scattered strands of hair.

The sharp fish bones pricked her lips.

Kanna Tomosuke felt all the hair on her body stand up.

Her whole body was trembling.

Another lackey smiled and took out her phone to take a picture of this scene.

"It's so dirty, no wonder it's a gray sewer rat." She laughed.

"Okay, it's almost time.

Go back. "The" Queen "outside the door spoke.

Her two lackeys obediently let go of Kanna Tomosuke, who was silently kneeling on the ground, and walked towards the door.

One second before the door blocked the last ray of light outside, she heard Flaming Spark's last sentence.

"Don't worry, I'll come and play with you after school."

As the creaking sound of metal friction stopped, the warehouse was once again left with only the pitiful light from the small window.

The empty room became eerily quiet.

Kanna Tomosuke still maintained her previous kneeling position.

After a while, she slowly supported herself on the ground and left the pile of leftovers that had been crushed beyond recognition. Rice grains and a few drops of water still hung on her gray hair.

A soft sobbing sound gradually sounded in the air.

The kittens in the nest uneasily scratched the dead branches under them, and made a sound.

The sound.

On the wall opposite the small window, bright spots of light were slowly moving.

After a long time, Kanna Tomosuke finally stopped crying silently.

She held her head, thinking in pain and confusion.

Her mind, which was full of fantasies and easily distracted, couldn't fully comprehend the pain she was going through.

She couldn't understand why Flaming Spark was so determined to go against her again and again, and even tried to trample her dignity and personality into the ground, and even completely erase her existence.

Even though she was slow and sometimes couldn't tell when others scolded her, she could still feel the pain.

She knew that all of this wasn't fair, and she didn't have enough strength to fight against this unfairness.

"Suffering losses is a blessing."

Her mother once told her this when she taught her Chinese. Her father would only take her to people who were in more difficult situations, trying to make her feel better and learn how to comfort those who were in more pain.

But these couldn't completely resolve her confusion.

Why did other people's anger have to be paid for by her own pain?

Her father only taught her to soothe other people's pain, but who could she give her own pain to?

Why did she have to chew and swallow all of this pain?

A small cat's meow almost sounded beside her, interrupting her thoughts.

After the kitten woke up from its afternoon nap, it boldly climbed out of its nest, as if following the smell of saury all the way to Kanna Tomosuke's side.

It didn't seem to be afraid of people at all.

It licked the leftover vegetable juice on the ground, and gently scratched Kanai's leather shoes with its fluffy little paws, leaving two almost invisible scratches.

She recognized that it was the child that the mother cat brought in last time.

It was the biggest and the most lively.

Its eyes were completely open, and they were the same golden color as Flaming Spark.

Its fur was a rare red color, and it was slightly curly.

It looked like the cat version of Flaming Spark.

Kanna Tomosuke thought as she stretched out her hands to pick it up.

But it didn't seem to like this kind of lifting.

It struggled and bit Kanna Tomosuke's left hand.

That hand was injured in the morning, and the blood in the wound had already coagulated, leaving only numb pain.

It didn't bite hard, at most, it was just a light scratch with its soft baby teeth.

But its action stimulated Kanna Tomosuke's nerves.

The anger and hostility that she didn't even realize she had been accumulating for a long time against Flaming Spark seemed to accumulate in this kitten in an instant.

She felt an almost uncontrollable impulse.

She wanted to throw it to the ground, then kick it, step on it, curse its shiny golden eyes and red fur, make it afraid, make it unable to fight back, and make it lose all of its luster like a rag doll — just like Flaming Spark had always done to her.

"Meow —" The kitten licked the place where it had just bitten, and twisted its small body uneasily in the air.

She came back to her senses, and her hands were shaking.

She gently put the kitten down.

As if it had sensed something, it was no longer intimate with Kanna Tomosuke, but ran away in fear to reunite with its brothers and sisters.

Kanna Tomosuke was stunned for a while, and slowly covered her face with her hands.

She wept again.

But this time, she cried because she suddenly understood one thing.

In fact, the impulse just now was a sign of her weakness — it was wrong, wrong.

The pain she suffered was not a reason to hurt others.

— If the pain had to go on like this, then she would rather the pain end with her forever.

The light coming through the window gradually turned from white to orange.

As the school bell finally rang, everyone cheered, picked up their school bags, and walked to the school gate in groups of two or three.

Flaming Spark and her two followers separated.

She walked against the flow of people, and walked alone in the opposite direction of the school gate.

As she walked, she hummed a song in a good mood.

At noon, Bombardment Scorch had already noticed that they left the classroom during lunch break, and he didn't know where they went. Originally, he wanted to follow them, but because he was called by the teacher to organize documents, he didn't succeed.

Now that school was over, no matter how he thought about it, the place Flaming Spark was going to must have something to do with Kanna Tomosuke.

Bombardment Scorch, who had been worried all day, hurriedly packed his bag, and quietly followed Flaming Spark's figure.

The end of her red hair was like a cluster of flames dancing among the lush leaves.

Flaming Spark's footsteps were unbelievably light.

After a few twists and turns, Bombardment Scorch, who wasn't familiar with the road, got lost in the tangled bushes of the desolate old school district.

The dry and cool autumn wind blew through the dry leaves, rustling and covering the hurried footsteps that should have been heard.

Flaming Spark's figure disappeared.

He stopped, and angrily clenched his fists.

And in the depths of the old school district that was about to be demolished, the door to the abandoned and dilapidated semi-underground warehouse was once again opened.

"Kanna Tomosuke, do you know what you did wrong?" As soon as the door opened, Flaming Spark opened her mouth and asked.

Kanna Tomosuke looked up at her, and then looked behind her, as if she was surprised that Flaming Spark came alone.

"Hmm?" She responded sluggishly.

"I said." She crossed her arms and said impatiently.

"You're really a loser, trash, do you know that?"

Kanna Tomosuke lowered her head, determined not to look at her again.

This made Flaming Spark even more furious.

She raised her right hand and pointed it at Kanna Tomosuke.

In the next second, a beautiful spark flew out from her fingertip, lightly flying to Kanna Tomosuke's ear, and exploded with a bang.

Colorful sparks flew out, burning Kanna Tomosuke's skin. The explosion also caused a sharp pain in her right ear. She felt as if there was a warm liquid flowing out of her ear, and the sounds around her became blurry.

She awkwardly rolled to the side and covered her injured right ear with one hand.

"Hahahahaha!"

Flaming Spark laughed heartily. "You know, I hate people like you who pretend to be aloof from the world when you're clearly trash!

Do you really think you're better than everyone else?

What a joke! "She continued to calmly display her personality as she spoke.

Another spark was released, and it exploded in the air very close to Kanna Tomosuke.

Kanna Tomosuke clumsily dodged, and sporadic black spots appeared on her thick autumn school uniform. Some even burned through, revealing a small bit of scalded skin under the fabric.

"The child of a loser is still a loser. It doesn't matter how you pretend to be."

She stood at the door and looked down at Kanna Tomosuke, who was awkwardly and futilely dodging her attacks, and said contemptuously, "Don't always talk about your father, it disgusts me.

Your father is also a loser — a policeman who can't even carry a gun?

What a joke! "

"No!

He's a hero! "

Kanna Tomosuke finally shouted angrily during the interval between the explosions, but she choked on the rising smoke and coughed.

"He told me — everyone can be a hero!" she said with difficulty.

"Everyone can be a hero?" Flaming Spark laughed out loud.

"That's why you don't obey me?

Because you want to be a hero? "She seemed to have heard the funniest joke, and her beautiful golden eyes curved.

"Come on!" she shouted.

"That's just your pitiful father coaxing you, who is also pitiful and has no personality!

People like us can fight the enemy and save people on the battlefield — what about you?

You can only tremble in the corner like a mouse.

Heroes?

Admit it, you can't do anything. "

"We don't belong to the same world as you — we never will."

With that, she spread out her hands, and the bright light illuminated the room, which was beginning to dim in the evening.

"Look at yourself, in front of my power, how can you escape?"

Bright yellow, orange-red, light purple, light blue … The colorful flames bloomed into beautiful flowers around Kanna Tomosuke.

That used to be her favorite scenery — every time there was a firework party, she would pester her parents to watch it live.

When she was young, she would always sit on her father's neck, looking up at the breathtaking light in the sky.

But now, the same beautiful flowers had turned into a nightmare that seemed to have no end.

She ran helplessly in the limited space until she was exhausted.

She couldn't avoid the hot sparks that exploded on her body, and at the same time, she screamed in pain.

Her other ear was bleeding as well.

"Please, I beg you, stop!

Please, stop! "Kanna Tomosuke shouted in despair.

"Stop?

Okay.

Kneel down and admit that you were wrong, and I'll stop, "Flaming Spark said coldly.

Kanna Tomosuke's chaotic brain could no longer think rationally.

Kneeling down is enough?

She thought absentmindedly.

Okay.

She stopped dodging, and her legs, which were already unable to bear the burden, finally bent down and fell to the floor.

But in the next second, there was another explosion.

This time, the fireworks fell on the floor, and the hot sparks spread along with the shockwave, covering the floor with a layer of fire.

Kanna Tomosuke's legs were burned.

She awkwardly got up from the ground.

"Hahahahaha, trash is trash, you really kneel!" Flaming Spark shouted, her voice full of joy.

Kanna Tomosuke finally didn't respond to her.

She silently hugged her head, buried herself between her knees, and curled up in the corner of the blackened wall.

She seemed to have accepted her fate and stopped struggling.

She just wants to see me like this.

Kanna Tomosuke thought.

Weak, helpless, powerless to resist.

Just like the kitten in her impulsive fantasy.

— — but in reality, how was she different from the kitten?

After using her personality for so long, Flaming Spark felt a bit tired.

She planned to go home.

"Do you want to go out?" She asked.

Silence.

"Beg me."

"Beg me with all your heart, and I'll let you go home."

Kanna Tomosuke finally looked up from her arms.

"Please, let me go home." Her voice was as soft as a mosquito.

"What?

Louder! "Flaming Spark raised her eyebrows, her face full of a victor's smile.

"Please, let me go home." Kanna Tomosuke took a deep breath, her voice was a bit louder than before.

Flaming Spark nodded, seemingly satisfied.

She took a step back, as if to make a path.

Kanna Tomosuke forced herself to stand up with her aching limbs, and staggered towards the door.

However, the heavy iron door closed in front of her the moment she got close.

"Gray sewer rat." Flaming Spark's voice came from behind the door.

"I want you to remember, you can only beg me like a dog, and I always have the freedom to agree or not. This is the difference between you and me."

"Don't think about running out, I've already locked the door from the outside. In another hour or two, someone will probably find you and save you."

Her voice was a bit muffled at the door. "Of course, you can tell others that I did it, but I think you should know that no one will believe you, and no one will do anything to me.

But what will happen to you in the future … You can imagine.

— — Of course, this is another difference between you and me. "

The voice outside the door disappeared.

Kanna Tomosuke sat on the side, exhausted.

She shouldn't have begged Flaming Spark, and she shouldn't have knelt down.

Kanna Tomosuke began to regret her previous choice. This would only make her more willing to step on her, and make her feel more humiliated.

If she was a hero, she would never do this.

She thought in annoyance.

Suddenly, she noticed that the burning smell in the air didn't seem to dissipate slowly, but was getting stronger.

The smoke in the room seemed to have begun to gather, and it was so choking that she couldn't open her eyes.

In the corner of the room, the kittens began to meow one after another, their voices full of uneasiness and fear.

Strange.

Why didn't I hear the kittens meowing just now?

… Maybe they have been meowing, but I was too focused on other things and ignored them.

She thought.

Kanna Tomosuke covered her mouth and nose, and walked towards the kittens' nest.

But the smoke seemed to have become thicker, and the things in front of her became less clear.

She had to follow the sound and continue to move forward.

It wasn't until she got closer that she saw the little sparks hidden in the smoke.

Although she tried her best to avoid the area when she was dodging Flaming Spark's firework attack, the boxes stored in the depths of the room were still ignited by the sparks floating in the air.

The kittens were frightened by the weak flames. They screamed loudly and tried to lean on each other, as if they could resist everything by being with their brothers and sisters.

The fire wasn't big.

Kanna tried her best to extinguish the flames by stepping on them. She then reached out her hand to try and save the kittens from the dangerous flammable area.

But an accident suddenly happened.

The boxes, which were piled up to the ceiling, suddenly lost their balance because of the fire, and suddenly fell onto the fire in front of the cat's nest that hadn't been completely extinguished.

The box was set ablaze, and the fire spread out in an instant.

The hot air forced Kanna Tomosuke to take a few steps back, and the thick smoke made her almost breathless.

The kittens screamed shrilly, like the cry of a baby, but also like the howl from hell.

The huge fire had surrounded them, and Kanna Tomosuke couldn't do anything.

The temperature in the room was getting higher and higher.

Kanna Tomosuke's eyes were full of the red flames.

She desperately tried to open the iron door, but to no avail.

Kanna Tomosuke finally exhausted her strength and knelt on the ground in pain, almost desperately enduring the thinning air and the hot temperature.

The shrill and desperate screams of the kittens still echoed in her ears, but she wondered if it was her illusion.

Was she going to die?

Was she going to die alone and powerlessly without being able to do anything?

The kittens were still screaming.

Her body was trembling, but she couldn't move even a millimeter.

Her mind became fuzzy, but she knew more and more clearly that she couldn't do anything now, just like Flaming Spark said — she couldn't even save her own life.

Just when she was in despair, the hot iron door seemed to be opened.

However, the sudden influx of air caused the already overwhelmed fire field to explode.

All the boxes were set ablaze in an instant.

The raging flames licked the sloped roof and began to erode the already overwhelmed walls.

Some burning debris began to fall.

At the last moment before her consciousness disappeared, she saw Ice, a pair of beautiful heterochromatic eyes, and a hand reaching out to her.

The hand was about the same size as hers, exuding a cool feeling that was completely different from the fire.

She could still hear the shrill screams of the kittens, like the crying of a baby.

But she could finally move.