At first, Erza thought Sister Mary was just a strange, overly religious woman, the kind who spoke of God and sin and redemption with the casual certainty of someone who had never doubted anything in her life.

But the more they talked, the more she found herself actually enjoying the saint’s company.

There was something calming about her voice, something steady and warm that made the small apartment feel larger, made the afternoon heat feel less oppressive, made the time pass without Erza noticing.

They had been speaking for nearly an hour, their tea growing cold beside them, their conversation drifting from Yuuta’s childhood to his schooling to the strange, stubborn way he had always refused to give up on anything, no matter how impossible it seemed. Sister Mary spoke of him with a fondness that reminded Erza of the way she spoke of Elena, not as something she owned, but as something she had been given, something precious, something she had tried her best to protect.

It was strange, Erza thought, to hear someone speak of Yuuta that way. She had spent weeks calling him pathetic, useless, a mortal not worth her time. And here was this woman, this saint who had dedicated her life to God and goodness, speaking of him like he was something holy.

"Oh!" Sister Mary clapped her hands together, her face lighting up. "I almost forgot. I brought something with me. I thought you might like to see it."

She reached into the worn leather bag beside her and pulled out a thick, dusty album. The cover was faded, the edges worn soft, the pages yellowed with age, the kind of album that held decades of memories, the kind that was opened only on special occasions and treasured long after the people in its photographs were gone.

"I have an old album from the orphanage," Sister Mary said, her fingers tracing the cover. "Yuuta’s childhood photos are in it."

Erza’s face did not change. Her hands did not move. Her voice, when she spoke, was as cold as it always was. "Oh?"

But inside, something wicked stirred. A smile crept onto her face, slow and dangerous, the kind she wore when she was about to win a game no one else knew they were playing. An album. Photographs. Childhood memories. My dear husband’s most embarrassing moments, preserved forever. This is a gift from the heavens.

Sister Mary opened it carefully, reverently, the way someone might open a book of prayers. Elena, who had been sitting quietly beside Erza, immediately leaned in, her eyes wide, her wings fluttering, her tail curling and uncurling with excitement.

The first page showed a small boy with red eyes, his hair messy, his clothes too big, his smile too wide. He was covered in flour from head to toe, white dust clinging to his eyebrows, his cheeks, his nose. He was holding a baking tray clearly too heavy for him, and half the cookies on it had already fallen to the floor.

Sister Mary laughed. "He wanted to make bread for the younger children. He said everyone deserved to eat something made with love."

Elena giggled, pointing at the photograph. "Papa is so messy!"

Erza did not laugh. She was looking at the boy’s eyes. They were the same as the man’s, red, bright, too bright for a world that did not want him. But in the photograph, they were still hopeful. They had not yet learned to be afraid.

She turned the page. Yuuta again, this time with singed hair, black marks on his face, a smoking pan in his hand. He looked proud despite the disaster. Another page, Yuuta slipping down the stairs, legs flying into the air, face frozen in a scream, schoolbooks scattering like autumn leaves. Another, Yuuta in a school play dressed as a tree, standing so still that another child had fallen asleep against his trunk. Another, Yuuta covered in mud after a rainstorm, grinning at the camera, holding a frog that was clearly as surprised as he was.

Elena laughed at every picture. "Papa is so funny, Mama! Look at his face!"

Erza did not answer. She was looking at the photographs more carefully now, at the spaces around the boy, at the other children who appeared in the frame but never beside him. In group shots, the other children stood together, arms linked, smiles bright. Yuuta stood apart. Always apart. A few feet away, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders hunched, his smile never quite reaching his eyes.

She frowned and turned the page. More photographs. Yuuta alone. In the garden pulling weeds by himself. In the library reading by himself. In the courtyard kicking a ball against a wall by himself. Other children in the background, always in the background, playing together, laughing together, living together. And Yuuta always at the edge, watching, waiting, alone.

She looked at Sister Mary. The woman’s smile had faded. Her hand rested on the open page, fingers tracing the outline of a small boy who had no one to play with.

"Why is he always alone?" Erza asked. Her voice was not cold. Not sharp. Something else, something she did not have a name for. "Where are the other children? Did he not have any friends?"

Sister Mary was quiet for a moment. Her blindfolded eyes fixed on the photograph, on the boy who had tried so hard to be something the world did not want him to be.

"He tried," she said finally, her voice soft and careful. "He tried to talk to them. To play with them. To be their friend. But they..." She trailed off, closing the album gently. "They avoided him."

Erza’s chest tightened. "Why?"

Sister Mary did not answer immediately. She sat there, hands on the album, face turned toward the window where the afternoon light was beginning to fade. When she spoke again, her voice was the same one she used when telling the children about things that happened before they were born.

"Because they thought he was cursed."

The words hung in the air. The afternoon sun, which had been warm, suddenly felt cold. The shadows, which had been soft, suddenly felt sharp. Erza looked at Elena, at her daughter’s face, at the confusion spreading across it, at the questions forming behind her eyes. Cursed.

Her hands curled into fists. "Why?" Her voice was colder than she intended, sharper, the voice she used when she was about to kill something. "Why would they think that?"

Sister Mary sighed, a long, slow breath, the breath of someone who had carried something for a very long time and was only now setting it down.

"His eyes were red," she said. "They had never seen anything like them. They did not understand them. And children, children are afraid of what they do not understand."

She paused, reaching for her glass of water.

Her movements were slow, deliberate, without any of the warmth she had shown while pointing at photographs of a small boy covered in flour and soot.

She drank.

Set the glass down. Folded her hands in her lap. There was no rush in her, no hesitation, only the careful preparation of someone about to speak words that had been waiting to be spoken for a very long time.

"It was several years ago," she began, her voice soft, her blindfolded gaze fixed on a point far beyond the walls of the apartment, beyond the city, beyond anything Erza could see. "Yuuta was just a small boy then. Playful. Bright. He smiled like pure sunshine, innocent, hopeful, full of the kind of light that children have before the world teaches them to be afraid."

Erza glanced down at Elena.

Her daughter leaned against her side, small fingers gripping Erza’s dress tightly, face turned toward Sister Mary, eyes wide and still.

She had been quiet ever since she heard the word cursed. No questions. No giggles. Just listening, her small body pressed against her mother’s, her hand holding on like she was afraid of what she might hear next.

Sister Mary continued, her voice steady, each word placed with care. "Many years ago, Yuuta and I came to the church through Father Elijah. He was one of the founding priests of Saint Sharon Michael. A good man, a kind man. He took us in when we had nowhere else to go. In the beginning, Yuuta was happy. Playful. Like the other children. I thought maybe this time, he would live his life fully. Maybe this time, he would forget the pain that had followed him. Maybe this time, he would be safe."

Erza listened.

She did not speak.

She did not move.

She sat at the small dining table with her daughter pressed against her side and a saint across from her, and she listened to the story of a boy she had been threatening to kill for weeks.

"One day," Sister Mary said, "a wealthy family came to visit the orphanage. The richest family in the country. They wanted to adopt a child. When they saw Yuuta, they were immediately drawn to him. They said he had a light in his eyes that reminded them of a better, purer world. A world they wanted to be part of."

Erza’s chest tightened. She could already see it, the small boy with red eyes, the boy who had been alone for so long, standing in front of strangers who looked at him like he was something precious.

"Yuuta was happy. He was a child, barely seven years old. He jumped up and down. He clapped his hands. He ran through the orphanage telling everyone he met that he was going to have a family. He packed his tiny bag with his favorite broken toys and a few crayon drawings. For the first time in his life, he felt wanted. He felt loved."

Erza could picture it. A tiny boy with red eyes and a grin too wide for his face, running through halls that had never been kind to him, telling anyone who would listen that he was going to be someone’s son. That he was going to be loved. Her hands curled into fists.

Sister Mary’s voice grew heavier. "The papers were signed. He was going to become the official son of James Walmart, the owner of the biggest shopping center in the country, a business tycoon. Yuuta was going to have everything he had ever wanted. But within the hour, disaster struck. The wealthy family faced multiple lawsuits. Their stock prices crashed. Their factories burned without reason. Their bank accounts were frozen. By the end of the day, their empire had crumbled to the ground."

Erza’s eyes widened. Her jaw clenched. She didn’t understand stock markets or banking, but she knew something had gone wrong. She had seen this before, the way fear spread, the way blame followed, the way people looked for something to blame when the world turned against them.

"James’s wife slapped Yuuta." Sister Mary’s voice cracked. "He was a child. He barely understood what was happening. He cried for an hour. He did not understand why they were angry or what he had done wrong. He only knew that he had been chosen, and then thrown away."

Erza’s fists tightened. Her nails pressed into her palms. She could imagine a small boy crying, holding his face, watching the people who had promised to love him walk away.

"They blamed Yuuta for all their misfortune. They brought him back to the orphanage. They tore the adoption papers in front of him while he was still crying. They left without looking back."

Erza’s heart pounded. Her chest was tight.

"That was just the beginning," Sister Mary whispered. "After that, word spread. Anyone who considered adopting Yuuta met with similar tragedies. Car accidents. Sudden bankruptcies. Mysterious illnesses. One couple even claimed that an unknown entity was following Yuuta, weeping day and night, and that anyone who touched him would be cursed."

The room fell silent. The shadows on the floor seemed darker, longer, as if reaching for something. The afternoon sun seemed to have withdrawn, as if even it was afraid.

"Soon, the rumors brought disaster to Yuuta’s life. He went completely silent for many months. He wept so many times that he collapsed from exhaustion." Sister Mary’s voice cracked again, and this time she did not try to hide it. "He was just a child. And he believed them. He believed he was cursed. He believed bad things happened to people who loved him. He believed he was something that should not exist."

Erza felt something crack inside her.

Sister Mary’s hands trembled as she continued, her fingers pressing into the worn cover of the album. "The other children started avoiding him after that. The rumors spread quickly, faster than I could stop them. They said he was a demon. That he had brought the curse upon himself. That he was the reason bad things happened to good people. They refused to play with him. They left him alone at the dining table, surrounded by empty seats while the other children ate together. They pushed him, tripped him, called him names. Sometimes they would corner him in the courtyard and shove him until he fell, and they would stand around him laughing while he lay on the ground trying to catch his breath."

Erza’s nails pressed deeper into her palms. She could see it, a small boy with red eyes, alone at a table full of children who would not sit beside him, being shoved until his knees bled, being laughed at while he tried to stand.

"They threw holy water on him at night," Sister Mary whispered. "They believed they were killing a demon. They would sneak into his room while he slept and pour it over him, and he would wake up coughing, gasping, crying. And they would run away laughing, thinking they had done something good."

Erza’s teeth ground together, the scrape of enamel against enamel, a jaw clenched so tight she thought it might shatter. Holy water. On a child. On him. She had seen the scars. Had traced them with her fingers when she healed him after the night in the field. She had not asked then. Now she knew. Now she wished she did not.

Sister Mary continued, her voice growing softer, sadder. "He endured so much. He learned to smile through it. To laugh. To pretend none of it touched him. But often... often, I found him crying alone in his room. That small, cold room in the back of the orphanage, the one no one else wanted because the window faced the wall and the sun never reached it. He would be curled in the corner. Knees drawn up to his chest. Trying to make himself smaller. Trying to disappear. And he would be crying silently, always silently, because he had learned that no one came when he made noise."

Erza’s vision blurred at the edges. She blinked it clear. Small. Cold. Alone. Curled in a corner where no one could see. Crying without sound because he had learned that no one would come.

"He wanted so little." Sister Mary’s voice cracked. "Just a family. Just someone to love him. Someone to see him as something other than a curse. That was all. A boy who had nothing, who had come from nothing, who had no one, and all he wanted was someone to hold him and tell him he was good."

She wiped at her eyes beneath the blindfold, though the tears seeped through anyway, wetting the white cloth. "But even the other sisters, the ones who should have known better, who had taken vows to care for the abandoned and the lost, began to treat him poorly. They ignored him. Pretended he was not there. When he spoke, they looked through him. When he needed help, they turned away."

Her voice dropped. "And during the plays, the little dramas we performed for the festivals, when the children dressed up and acted out stories from the scriptures, he wanted to play God. Just once. Just to know what it felt like to be seen as good, as holy, as someone worthy of love. But they always made him the devil. Always. Year after year, they dressed him in black, put horns on his head, and told him to crouch and hiss while the other children played angels."

She looked up, her blindfolded eyes somehow finding Erza’s face through the cloth. "And he would do it. He would stand there in his costume, and smile, and pretend it did not matter. Because he wanted so badly to be part of something. Even if that something was only pretending he was evil."

A lump formed in Erza’s throat. She tried to swallow it but could not. It sat there, hard and hot, pressing against her windpipe, making it hard to breathe.

She glanced toward the balcony door. Yuuta was still out there, a dark shape against the morning light, kneeling on the cold stone, his ridiculous posture of apology aimed at the sun. His lips still moved, still muttering his apologies, still begging forgiveness for sins he had never committed.

This fool. This stupid, stubborn, impossible fool. He had endured all of that? Alone? As a child? A boy who only wanted someone to love him? The image would not leave her. A small boy curled in a cold room. A small boy dressed in black while other children wore white. A small boy smiling while they threw water on him, pretending they were killing a demon.

She thought of Elena. Thought of anyone ever treating her daughter that way. Thought of what she would do to anyone who tried. She would burn the world.

"Sister Mary." Her voice came out colder than she intended, harder than she meant. "Just tell me this." She paused, letting the words settle like stones in still water. "How did he get the scars on his back? Those marks, like he was tortured, like someone carved into him with something hot and sharp. Did the orphanage do that to him?"

Sister Mary stiffened. The change was immediate. Her hands stopped trembling. Her breath caught. Her face, usually so calm, so serene, went very still, the stillness of someone who had been asked a question they had hoped would never come.

"I..." She hesitated. Her fingers pressed together. "I do not know about those scars. They were there when he came to us. Before I knew him. They have always been there, from the very first day. I do not know where they came from or who put them there."

Liar. The word rose in Erza’s mind before she could stop it. Liar. Liar. Liar. She saw it in the way Sister Mary’s shoulders tightened. In the way her voice pitched higher, her words came too fast, too precise. In the way she had not asked what scars Erza was talking about, had known immediately what was being asked.

She knows. She knows, and she is hiding it. Something about those scars. Something about where they came from. Something about what happened to him before he arrived at the orphanage, before Sister Mary found him, before anyone knew he existed. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Erza opened her mouth to press further.

Elena burst into tears.

Not quiet tears. Not soft crying. Loud, heart-wrenching sobs that filled the room, echoed off the walls, made Erza’s heart clench so hard she forgot everything else.

"Elena!" Erza pulled her onto her lap, arms wrapping around her daughter’s small, shaking body. "What is wrong? What happened?"

Elena clung to her, tiny fingers digging into Erza’s sleeves, small face pressing against her chest, whole body shaking with the force of her crying. "Papa did not deserve that!" Her voice was high and broken, raw with a grief she was too young to understand. "All he wanted was love! Why did they blame him? It is not fair! It is not fair!"

She cried harder, words tumbling over each other, small chest heaving. "I hate them! I hate humans! I hate everyone who hurt Papa! I hate them all!"

Sister Mary stiffened. Her hands folded tighter in her lap. Her face was still, but something flickered behind the blindfold, pain, perhaps, or guilt. The words of a child, sharp as knives, cutting where they should not.

Erza tightened her hold on Elena, rocking her gently the way she had when Elena was smaller, when the world was too big and too loud and she needed to be reminded she was safe. Her hand stroked her daughter’s silver hair. "Hey, hey." Her voice was softer than she intended. Gentler. "Do not say that. Do not hate. Hate is heavy, little one. Too heavy for someone so small."

Elena’s sobs quieted. Not stopped. But quieted.

"Your Papa is okay now." Erza pressed her lips to Elena’s hair. "He has us. He is not alone anymore. He will never be alone again."

Elena sniffled. Her small body still shook, but the desperate edge of her crying had faded into something softer, more fragile. "Really?" Her voice was a whisper, a hope too precious to speak loudly. "He is not alone anymore?"

Erza smiled. Not her cold smile. Not her cruel smile. Not the smile she wore when conquering or threatening or reminding the world she was a queen. Something smaller. Something softer. Something that hurt to hold in her chest.

"Yes." She brushed Elena’s hair back from her face. "He is not alone. If you do not believe me," she nodded toward the balcony door, where Yuuta still knelt in the sun, muttering to the sky, "go talk to him. Go see for yourself."

Elena looked up. Her red eyes were wet. Her cheeks stained with tears. Her lips still trembling. But hope was in her face, fragile, trembling, but there.

She slipped off Erza’s lap and ran toward the balcony, small feet pounding against the floor, shadow stretching long behind her in the morning light. She pushed open the door and disappeared into the brightness, into the sun, into the space where her father knelt and waited.

Erza watched her go.

To be continued...