Chapter 247: If You Truly Love Me

Then, without looking away,

Yuuta quietly asked,

"Erza... do you love me?"

The question struck her harder than any blade ever had. Erza’s violet eyes widened, and for a moment she simply stared at him as though she had forgotten how to breathe.

A deep blush immediately spread across her cheeks, reaching all the way to the tips of her ears as her heart suddenly began pounding against her chest.

Love...?

The single word repeated inside her mind while she struggled to understand why Yuuta had suddenly asked her something so direct.

For the briefest moment, the corners of her lips almost curved into a small smile, but then she noticed his eyes.

There was no embarrassment in them.

No nervousness.

No playful curiosity.

Yuuta wasn’t asking because he wanted to hear something romantic from his wife.

There was a quiet seriousness behind his gaze, something far heavier than the question itself, and Erza immediately realized that this wasn’t really about love.

Her faint smile disappeared.

"Why are you asking me this all of a sudden?" she asked, her voice becoming gentler as concern replaced her embarrassment.

"Where did this come from, Yuuta?"

She studied his expression carefully, searching for even the smallest clue.

"Tell me what happened."

Yuuta remained silent.

Erza took another step closer, her worried expression becoming impossible to hide.

"Something must have happened to you. I can see it in your eyes."

The concern in her voice made Yuuta look away.

For a brief moment, he almost regretted asking.

Seeing her standing in front of him, genuinely worried about him rather than angry or suspicious, made the decision much harder than he had expected.

A part of him wanted to tell her everything the Nightmare Trial, the deaths, the Aesthor Stones, the memories he had lost, and the terrible realization that everyone around him seemed to know something about his past.

But another part of him remained afraid.

Should I tell her?

He clenched his fingers slightly.

No.

I can’t let myself be distracted just because she’s worried about me.

Yuuta slowly raised his eyes again.

"Erza..."

She immediately looked at him.

"Just tell me, Yuuta."

Her voice was soft and caring.

"I promise I’ll help you."

Yuuta’s heart tightened.

For a moment, he almost gave in.

Then he remembered everything that had happened.

The nightmares.

The deaths.

The missing memories.

The Aesthor Stone.

Grandpa’s words.

The strange truth surrounding his existence.

He couldn’t afford to let his emotions decide what he did next.

So instead, Yuuta quietly repeated the question.

"Erza..."

He paused, his voice softer this time.

"Do you love me?"

Erza’s expression became slightly frustrated.

He was asking the same question again.

"Yuuta, I already told you to....."

She stopped.

Something had caught her attention.

A single tear.

It slowly gathered in the corner of Yuuta’s eye before rolling down his cheek.

Erza’s expression changed immediately.

Her frustration vanished.

She didn’t know what had happened to him, but she understood one thing with absolute certainty: Yuuta wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. If she kept pressing him, he might close himself off completely, and that was the last thing she wanted.

She took a slow breath.

Her fingers nervously rubbed against one another as she struggled with something that should have been simple.

The words were easy to think.

They were much harder to say directly to him.

Erza lowered her gaze for a moment before finally looking back into his eyes.

"Yes, Yuuta..."

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"I love you."

The words escaped her lips with a faint tremble.

She immediately looked away, her face burning red again.

"I..."

She swallowed.

"I love you a lot."

This time, however, she didn’t hide behind a whisper.

Erza raised her head and looked directly at him, forcing herself to say what she had spent so long keeping buried inside her heart, even though she said already.

"I love you, Yuuta!"

For several seconds, the apartment remained completely silent.

Yuuta simply stared at Erza while her confession lingered between them, but instead of making him happy, the words only made something inside his chest hurt even more.

He loved her; that had never been the problem.

The problem was that every answer he received seemed to create another question, and the more he tried to understand what had happened to him, the further the truth seemed to move away from him.

Yuuta lowered his gaze, his fingers slowly tightening into fists.

"If you truly love me this much..."

His voice trembled.

Erza’s expression softened as she watched him, but before she could respond, Yuuta continued.

"Then why did you hide everything from me?"

Erza froze.

For a moment, she couldn’t even understand the question.

"Hide...?"

"Yes, hide. Tell me, do you hide things from someone you love, Erza?" Yuuta said.

Her violet eyes widened slightly.

"I don’t understand. What are you talking about?"

Yuuta’s head slowly lifted.

"Don’t play around with me, Erza."

His voice was no longer gentle.

"You know exactly what I’m talking about."

Erza stared at him in confusion.

She searched through everything that had happened recently, trying desperately to understand what he believed she had hidden from him.

The first possibility that entered her mind was his aura training.

Perhaps he had finally realized that she had deliberately made the training more difficult because she had been afraid of what might happen if he awakened his power too quickly.

Is that what he’s angry about?

But the moment she looked into his eyes, she knew that wasn’t it.

There was something else.

Something far deeper.

The frustration in Yuuta’s expression wasn’t the frustration of someone who had lost an argument. It was the desperation of someone who had spent too long searching for an answer and had finally reached the point where he could no longer endure being kept in the dark.

And beneath that frustration...

Erza saw fear.

The genuine fear in his eyes immediately made her reject that possibility.

No.

This isn’t about the training.

Whatever Yuuta had discovered, it was something that had shaken him far more deeply than that.

Erza carefully stepped closer.

"Yuuta, I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t understand what you mean," Erza said. "If you mean the aura theory, I agree, I did hide it from you," she said.

She tried to keep her voice calm, hoping that maybe this was the reason he was so upset after all he had trained for many hours without a break, only to fail.

But those words only made something inside Yuuta break.

His eyes widened as countless memories suddenly rushed through his mind. The Nightmare Trial. The endless deaths.

The Aesthor Stones. Fiona’s strange behavior. Grandpa’s words. The missing memories. The shadow figure.

The strange voice that had spoken about him as though his existence had been known long before he ever understood himself.

And now Erza was standing in front of him, looking directly into his eyes and telling him she didn’t understand.

His chest tightened.

"STOP PRETENDING YOU DON’T GET IT!"

His voice exploded through the apartment.

Erza’s eyes widened.

Yuuta’s entire body trembled as his breathing became ragged. Tears began spilling down his cheeks, but he didn’t bother wiping them away anymore.

"You know what I’m saying!"

He clenched his fists harder.

"You know!"

His voice cracked beneath the weight of everything he had been holding inside.

"You know what’s happening to me!"

Erza stared at him, completely stunned.

She had seen Yuuta angry before.

She had seen him frustrated.

She had even seen him terrified.

But this was different.

This wasn’t simply anger.

It was desperation.

He looked like a man who had spent years unknowingly walking toward a cliff and had only just realized how close he was to the edge.

"Yuuta..."

Erza’s voice softened immediately.

She slowly reached toward him, but Yuuta instinctively stepped back.

That small movement hurt her more than she expected.

His eyes remained fixed on her while tears continued falling.

"I just want to know the truth..."

His voice became quieter, almost broken.

"Why does everyone know something about me..."

"...except me?"

Yuuta swallowed hard, but the words continued coming before he could stop them.

"You, Fiona, Grandpa, Elena... everyone seems to know something about me except me. Why am I the only one who has to suffer like a fool?"

His fingers trembled as he stared at Erza through tear-filled eyes.

"What did I do? What sin did I commit to deserve this?"

He had intended to be careful.

He had promised himself that he would ask his questions strategically, that he would watch Erza’s reactions and slowly uncover the truth without revealing how much he already knew.

But somewhere along the way, his plan had collapsed beneath the weight of everything he had carried for years.

The pain of his entire life came crashing back at once, the orphanage, the loneliness, the bullying at school, the strange nightmares that had followed him since childhood, the fear he never understood, and now the horrifying realization that those nightmares had never been ordinary dreams.

Erza remained silent.

Her violet eyes stayed fixed on him as countless thoughts raced through her mind.

Does he know about his past?

The possibility immediately made her more cautious.

No... I cannot assume anything.

She had to understand exactly what Yuuta knew before she said anything that could make the situation worse.

"I still don’t understand what you’re talking about," Erza finally said carefully.

Her voice remained calm, but she could see Yuuta’s breathing becoming increasingly unstable.

"Yuuta... tell me what you discovered."

Yuuta gave a broken laugh that contained no humor whatsoever.

"You already know what I discovered Erza!"

His voice rose again, but this time there was more pain than anger behind it.

"But do you know what it’s like to be blind?"

Erza didn’t answer.

Yuuta continued before she could.

"When I was little, I always knew something was wrong with me. The scars, the cursed eye, those cursed dreams..."

His eyes lowered as memories from his childhood slowly surfaced.

"But I kept telling myself it was nothing. I thought maybe it was coincidence. Maybe I was just unlucky. Maybe the nightmares were because I was stressed. Maybe the things happening around me were simply bad luck."

He wiped his face with the back of his hand, but more tears immediately replaced the ones he had removed.

"I kept making excuses because I didn’t have any other answers."

His voice gradually weakened.

"But now..."

He looked back at Erza.

"Now I’m tired."

Those two words carried far more weight than his earlier shouting.

"I’m tired of pretending that I don’t notice anything."

Yuuta’s shoulders trembled.

"I’m tired of pretending that everything is normal when I know something has been happening behind my back this entire time."

He took another shaky breath, trying desperately to control himself.

"I don’t know what I am."

"I don’t know where I came from."

"I don’t know why those dreams keep happening."

"I don’t even know how many times I’ve forgotten something important because someone decided I shouldn’t remember it."

His voice cracked.

He lowered his head.

"But I’m tired of being treated like I’m too weak to know the truth about my own life."

Erza’s heart tightened.

She had faced armies without hesitation. She had watched kingdoms burn without allowing her expression to change. She had stood before gods and refused to lower her head.

Yet watching Yuuta stand before her like this was somehow harder.

She could see the exhaustion in him now.

Not the exhaustion of a body that needed sleep.

It was something much deeper.

His mind was exhausted.

His soul was exhausted.

He had spent his entire life searching for an explanation to something he had never even been told existed.

And now he had finally reached the point where he could no longer carry the uncertainty alone.

"I..."

Yuuta’s voice became barely audible.

"I’m tired, Erza."

He slowly raised his eyes again.

"I don’t want to keep living like this."

Erza said nothing as she stood before him, her expression controlled despite the painful tightness spreading through her chest.

Until this moment, she had never truly understood what Yuuta had been feeling.

She knew about his past, his nightmares, the seals placed upon him, and fragments of suffering he himself could no longer remember, yet somehow she had never considered what it must feel like from his side to wake every day knowing something was wrong with his own existence while everyone around him possessed answers they refused to give.

Yuuta remained silent for several seconds, forcing himself to take a deep breath before speaking again. His earlier anger had almost completely disappeared, leaving behind an exhaustion that somehow hurt Erza even more than his shouting.

"Erza..." Yuuta called softly. "If you truly love me... then please."

His voice trembled as he forced himself to continue.

"And please tell me why... why am I having these Cursed dreams? Why am I suffering like this?"

Something inside Erza nearly broke.

She had known Yuuta suffered. She had seen enough of his memories to understand that his childhood had been filled with pain, loneliness, and things no child should ever have experienced. Yet hearing him ask such a simple question with that broken voice made her realize something she had failed to understand before.

Yuuta had been suffering without even knowing why.

Every childhood nightmare had terrified him without explanation. Every strange event surrounding his existence had left another unanswered question. Every time someone protected him by hiding the truth, they had unknowingly left him alone with the consequences.

Erza slowly looked away.

For the first time since the conversation began, maintaining her composure became difficult. Moisture gathered at the corner of her violet eyes, and she quickly turned her face away before Yuuta could properly see it.

"I’m sorry..."

Her voice was unusually quiet.

"It’s true that I love you."

Her fingers slowly curled against her palms.

"But there are things I cannot reveal to you."

She closed her eyes.

"Please... forgive me."

Silence followed.

Neither of them moved.

The apartment that had once felt warm suddenly became unbearably heavy. Elena continued sleeping peacefully on the sofa, completely unaware of the conversation happening only a short distance away, while Yuuta and Erza remained separated by only a few steps that somehow felt wider than an entire world.

Nearly a minute passed before Yuuta finally lowered his head.

"...I get it."

Erza slowly looked toward him.

Yuuta gave a weak nod as though he had finally understood something he had spent years refusing to accept.

"I finally get it."

Something about the emptiness in his voice frightened Erza more than his earlier shouting.

"You decided I don’t deserve to know the truth because..."

He hesitated before forcing himself to look directly at her.

"...because I’m weak, right?"

Erza’s eyes widened.

"No."

Her answer came immediately.

"That’s different."

Yuuta’s expression twisted with frustration.

"Then what’s different, Erza?"

His voice rose despite his attempts to control it.

"Tell me."

Erza opened her mouth, but Yuuta continued before she could answer.

"Do you think I don’t understand what’s happening?"

His breathing became heavier again.

"Because I’m weak, everyone decides things for me. Because I’m weak, people hide things from me. Because I’m weak, everyone gets to decide what I should know, what I shouldn’t know, where I should go, what I should remember..."

His voice cracked beneath the weight of his frustration.

"...and apparently even what I’m allowed to know about myself."

Erza’s lips parted slightly, but no words came.

Yuuta stared at her through wet crimson eyes.

"Why?"

His fists tightened.

"Why, Erza?"

"Why does being weak mean I don’t get to decide anything about my own life?"

His voice rose with every word, not from hatred toward her but from the helplessness he could no longer suppress.

"Why does everyone get to decide what I can know? Why does everyone get to decide what memories I can keep? Why does everyone get to decide what’s best for me without ever asking me?"

He shook his head as another tear escaped his eye.

"And even now..."

"You still won’t tell me."

Yuuta stared at her with an expression that made Erza’s chest tighten painfully.

"Because you know I’m weak."

Erza remained frozen.

For the first time, his accusation forced her to confront a question she had never seriously asked herself.

Why did I decide for him?

She had always believed the answer was obvious.

Because Yuuta couldn’t protect himself.

Because he wasn’t ready.

Because certain truths could destroy him.

Because she was stronger, older, and understood dangers he couldn’t possibly comprehend.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Everyone around him, Elf queen, Elders, the goddess herself, all of them, circling him his entire life, making choices on his behalf while he stood in the dark asking why. Was it really because he was weak? Or was that simply the excuse they’d all agreed to use, so none of them had to face what the truth would actually cost him?

Before she could chase the thought any further, something older surged up from underneath it memory, sudden and violent, dragging her backward through centuries she rarely let herself revisit.

The memory of the crown.

The seal.

And the price of that seal, written somewhere far darker than ink.

Written in blood.

Erza’s heart tightened. She had almost close to told him.

For one dangerous moment, Yuuta’s pain had made her question everything, and she had nearly allowed her emotions to overcome the caution that everyone before her had maintained.

Now that the memory had returned, however, she understood why Grandpa, the Goddess, and everyone who possessed even fragments of knowledge concerning Yuuta had been so careful around him.

This wasn’t simply about whether he deserved the truth. There were consequences connected to that truth, and Erza couldn’t gamble with Yuuta’s life merely because watching him suffer made her feel guilty.

She slowly shook her head, forcing herself to remain firm despite the tears gathering in her eyes.

"No... I can’t tell you, Yuuta. I can’t bring myself to take that risk." Her voice weakened as she looked at him, knowing exactly how cruel those words must sound after everything he had just confessed.

"What we’re doing is for your safety. I know you have no reason to believe that right now, but please... trust me."

Yuuta remained silent while Erza struggled to continue.

She wanted desperately to explain why she was refusing him, yet even that explanation threatened to lead too close to the very truth she was trying to keep away from him.

All she could offer him was another promise, and after hearing everything Yuuta had just said, she knew how worthless promises must have begun to sound.

"This suffering won’t last forever..." Erza said, taking a careful step toward him.

"Everything that’s happening to you will end. I promise you that. Whatever I have to do, wherever I have to go, whatever I have to destroy... I will make sure you never suffer like this again."

Yuuta’s fists tightened at his sides, but this time he didn’t shout.

He slowly forced himself to breathe, pushing down the frustration threatening to consume him. Erza was emotional now, and beneath everything she had said, he could clearly see something he hadn’t noticed before.

She wasn’t refusing because she didn’t care.

She was afraid.

Whatever truth Erza knew about him, even someone like her was frightened of what might happen if she revealed it.

That realization changed Yuuta’s approach.

He slowly stepped closer to her, allowing the anger in his expression to fade.

"I understand," he said quietly.

"I understand you’re doing this because you care about me. I’m not angry at you, Erza."

Erza’s violet eyes widened slightly.

The sudden gentleness in his voice caught her completely off guard after everything that had just happened, and the tears she had been struggling to suppress finally gathered more visibly along her lashes.

"I’m sorry," she whispered. "I know this is hard for you. I know asking you to trust me after refusing to explain anything is unfair, but please believe me. Everything will be alright."

Yuuta looked at her for several seconds before giving a small nod.

"I know," he replied, and for the first time since their argument began, his voice sounded genuinely calm. However, his expression slowly changed as he continued.

"But there’s something you’re wrong about."

Erza frowned slightly, confused by the sudden shift.

Yuuta lowered his gaze toward his own hands.

"I’m not weak anymore."

Erza’s expression froze.

"...Not weak anymore?"

She studied him carefully, unable to understand what he meant.

"What do you mean by that?"

Yuuta didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he slowly closed his eyes.

The apartment became quiet once more as he turned his attention inward, searching for the strange presence he had finally learned to recognize during those countless deaths inside the Nightmare Trial.

He remembered the feeling of forcing it through the stone, the sensation of allowing it to move rather than resisting it, and the countless failures that had taught his body something his conscious mind had barely begun to understand.

Then he reached for it.

Something answered.

A faint pressure emerged from deep within Yuuta’s soul before slowly spreading through his body. It moved through his chest first, then along his shoulders and arms, flowing through him with an unfamiliar naturalness.

The air surrounding him began to tremble as thin strands of energy crawled across his skin, gradually becoming denser until his entire body was wrapped within a layer of pure aura.

Erza stopped breathing.

Her violet eyes widened so sharply that every other thought inside her mind vanished. She could see it clearly surrounding him, responding to him without external assistance, flowing according to his will as though he had been controlling it far longer than a single day.

For perhaps the first time that evening, the Queen of Atlantis genuinely lost control of her expression.

"A... Aura...?"

The word escaped her lips in complete disbelief.

Her eyes moved across Yuuta’s body again and again, desperately searching for some other explanation, but there wasn’t one. This wasn’t mana leaking accidentally from an unstable soul, nor was it power responding instinctively to danger.

Yuuta was consciously controlling aura.

Erza’s lips slowly parted as an impossible question formed inside her mind.

How...?

To Be Continued.