Chapter 194: The Weight of a Mother’s Sin
She looked at Yuuta’s eyes, and she saw hope there, bright and fragile and desperately alive. It was the same hope she had seen years ago, in another pair of eyes.
Violet eyes.
Determined eyes.
The eyes of her son.
The memory rose unbidden, pulling her back through time to the throne room of Atlantis, to a moment she had nearly forgotten.
The throne room had been cold that day, not with winter, but with the weight of centuries pressing down from the vaulted ceiling.
Erza sat on the throne of frozen dawn, her silver hair cascading over the armrest, her violet eyes scanning the documents spread across the stone arm of her chair.
Trade agreements. Border disputes.
Petitions from nobles who wanted more than they deserved.
In her lap, Elena slept peacefully.
Erza’s hand rested on the child’s back, her fingers moving in slow, gentle circles. Elena’s small face was pressed against her mother’s chest, her silver hair spread across Erza’s arm like spilled moonlight. Her tiny fingers curled around the fabric of Erza’s dress, holding on even in sleep. Every few moments, Erza would glance down at her, not a quick glance, but a long one, a soft one, the kind of look she never gave anyone else.
Elena stirred once, mumbling something in her sleep.
Erza’s hand stilled.
She waited, watching her daughter’s face, until Elena settled again. Then her hand resumed its gentle motion.
Then, the doors opened.
Yuri entered.
He was young, barely past his Three year old, the same age as Elena, but he carried himself with an absolute presence that made the guards bow their heads. His Black hair, the same shade as his Father, fell across his forehead in soft waves. His violet eyes, his mother’s eyes, were fixed on the floor.
He did not look at Elena. He did not look at the throne. He walked to the center of the room and knelt.
His small hands pressed against the cold stone. His forehead nearly touched the ground. His posture was perfect, the posture of a prince who had been trained to show respect, even to a mother who rarely showed warmth in return.
He did not speak.
He did not move.
He waited.
Erza did not raise her hand immediately.
She continued reading her documents, her violet eyes scanning the pages, her hand still resting on Elena’s back.
The seconds stretched into a minute.
The silence grew heavy.
Yuri did not move.
Finally, without looking up, Erza raised her hand, the signal that he was permitted to speak.
"Mother," Yuri said, his voice steady despite his age, "I have come to seek your wisdom."
Erza did not acknowledge him.
She turned a page.
"I have begun my training," Yuri continued, his small hands resting on his knees. "The elders have submitted their reports. They say that I may not possess any aura or mana. They say that I am hollow, empty, a vessel with nothing inside."
He paused.
His jaw tightened.
"I do not believe them."
Erza’s quill scratched across the parchment.
She signed a document, set it aside, and reached for another.
"I believe only in you, Mother." Yuri’s voice did not waver. "You are the one who brought me into this world. You shaped my flesh. You breathed life into my lungs. So I ask you, not them, do I possess any strength? Do I have any power hidden within me?"
Erza set down her quill.
She looked at him then, really looked at him. Her violet eyes were cold, colder than they had been when she looked at Elena, colder than they had been when she signed the documents.
There was no warmth in her gaze, no softness, no affection.
There was only calculation.
Evaluation.
Assessment.
She could have told him the truth. She could have said that his father was a stranger, a mortal man with no power, no lineage, no legacy. She could have said that his blood was unkown to her, his body fragile, his future limited. She could have crushed his hope with a single word, and he would have accepted it because he trusted her.
But she saw his eyes.
Violet eyes. Her eyes. And in those eyes, she saw not desperation, but determination. The quiet, steady hope of someone who did not need her to believe in him, he only needed her to say the words so he could prove her right.
"Do you want me to bring the elder’s head for doubting you, Son?" she asked, her voice cold as winter steel. There was no affection in the words, no warmth. She spoke to him the way she spoke to her generals, direct, efficient, impersonal.
Yuri shook his head. "No, Mother. I do not want blood. I want truth."
He paused.
"Do you believe, truly believe, that I can wield power?"
Erza looked at him for a long moment. Her hand, which had been resting on Elena’s back, continued its gentle circles. Her touch on her daughter was soft. Her gaze on her son was not.
"Yes," she said. "You do have potential, Son."
Her voice did not change.
There was no encouragement in it, no warmth, no pride. Just a statement of fact, delivered with the same cold efficiency she used to sign execution orders.
Yuri nodded.
His expression did not change, but something behind his eyes shifted, a weight lifting, a chain breaking, a door opening.
Behind him, his attendants, Den and Dani, whispered excitedly. "I knew it," Dani breathed. "The prince has potential. The elders are fools."
Erza’s eyes narrowed.
Her aura rose, not much, just enough to remind them where they stood.
Both attendants fell to their knees, their faces pale, their mouths snapping shut.
Yuri did not flinch.
He bowed again, deeper this time.
"Thank you, Mother. I will take my leave now."
He rose and walked toward the doors, his attendants scrambling to follow. Before he left, he paused. His violet eyes drifted to the throne, to Elena, still sleeping in Erza’s lap, to the small silver-haired child who had stolen so much of their mother’s attention.
Erza was stroking Elena’s hair now, her fingers gentle, her expression soft. She did not look at Yuri. She did not notice him watching.
His jaw tightened. His tongue clicked against his teeth, a small sound of frustration, of disappointment, of something that might have been hurt.
Then he turned and walked out, disappearing into the corridors of the palace.
Erza did not watch him go.
Her hand continued its gentle motion on Elena’s back, and her violet eyes returned to the documents on her desk.
Now, Erza looked at Yuuta.
The same hope burned in his red eyes, a different color, but the same fire. The same quiet determination that said, I do not need you to believe in me. I only need you to give me a chance.
She knew the truth.
She knew that teaching him aura was impossible, that his human body was not built for it, that his sealed memories would crack under the pressure, that he could die if he made one wrong move. Every logical part of her mind screamed at her to say no.
But she had learned something from Yuri.
Hope could change fate.
"Yes," she said. "You can learn it."
Yuuta’s eyes widened. His breath caught.
"Really?" he asked.
Yuuta smiled.
It was not the polite smile he gave to neighbors or the tired smile he gave to customers at the restaurant. It was something else, something rare and precious, the kind of smile that only appeared when hope was rekindled after being buried too long. He did not know how he would learn aura.
He did not know if he even could. The power was foreign to him, tied to a world he had barely begun to understand, guarded by beings who saw him as less than an insect.
But his wife believed in him.
And that was enough.
History was filled with successful men who, when asked the secret of their achievements, spoke of the women who stood beside them. The wives who believed when no one else did. The partners who saw potential when the world saw only failure.
Yuuta had never thought of himself as one of those men, he was a cook, a father, a man who had spent his life trying to be ordinary. But now, sitting across from Erza, hearing her say that he could learn, he felt something shift inside him.
The journey toward becoming overpowered was going to start now.
Not with a grand declaration or a dramatic transformation.
With a wife who believed in her husband.
And that was enough.
Elena watched from the doorway.
Her small hands were wrapped around the frame, her red eyes moving from her father’s face to her mother’s, back and forth, taking in every detail. She did not interrupt. She did not ask questions. She simply watched, her young mind understanding that something important was happening, something that did not need her voice.
When she saw her father smile, really smile, the way he did when he was truly happy, she giggled. The sound was soft, barely audible, but it carried through the kitchen like sunlight through a window.
Erza heard it.
She looked at Elena, then at Yuuta, and something warm bloomed in her chest. She had never known she would fall in love with this face, this foolish, earnest, stubborn face that she had once hated. Back in Atlantis, when she had first learned of his existence, she had imagined him as a monster, a villain, a creature to be destroyed.
Now her heartbeat quickened just to see him smile.
Then something shifted.
The warmth did not vanish, but something else crept in beside it, cold and sharp, unwelcome. It happened every time she looked at him for too long. Every time she let herself feel this happiness. Every time she forgot.
That face.
She had seen it before. Not Yuuta’s face, not exactly, but something like it. The same dark hair. The same desperate eyes. The same quiet determination that refused to break no matter how many times the world tried to shatter it.
She had seen that face kneeling before her hundred times.
She had seen it looking up at her, waiting for a word of warmth that never came.
She had seen it turn away, small shoulders straight, violet eyes dry, because he had learned long ago that she would not hold him the way she held Elena.
Yuri.
The name surfaced from the depths of her dragon memory, unbidden, unwanted.
Her face went pale.
Her hands, which had been resting on the table, began to tremble.
Yuuta did not notice.
He was too busy smiling, too lost in the warmth of her belief, too unaware of the agony that had just flooded her heart. He did not know what he had done to her. He did not know that their first meeting had been born from violence, that their children had been conceived in an act she had not consented to, that every moment of happiness they shared was built on a foundation of pain.
He did not know.
And Erza could not tell him.
_________
Dinner was peaceful.
The apartment smelled of curry and rice and the faint sweetness of the juice Elena had insisted on drinking. Yuuta made small jokes as they ate, terrible jokes, the kind that made Elena giggle and Erza roll her eyes. Elena laughed at every single one, her small body wiggling with delight, her silver hair bouncing with each giggle.
Erza maintained her cold expression.
She ate slowly, her fork moving from plate to mouth in mechanical motions. She nodded at appropriate moments. She even smiled once, when Elena said something particularly funny. But inside, something was growing, something dark and heavy, pressing against her ribs, making it hard to breathe.
Regret.
Every time she looked at Yuuta, she saw the other one. The one she had failed. The one she had treated worse than she had ever treated Yuuta, worse than she had ever treated anyone.
Yuuta had received her coldness, yes. But he had also received her presence. Her time. Her reluctant, grudging, growing affection.
The other one had received nothing.
She had given him duty instead of love. Responsibility instead of warmth. She had held Elena in her lap while he knelt on the cold stone floor. She had stroked her daughter’s hair while he waited for her to raise her hand and give him permission to speak.
I hurt that face, she thought. Not Yuuta’s face. But a face like his. My own blood, his blood. My own son.
What kind of mother does that?
The question had no answer.
Only guilt.
She pushed the thought away.
She was very good at pushing things away.
After dinner, Yuuta moved to the table.
He pulled out a notebook, one of the many scattered around the apartment, filled with recipes and grocery lists and the occasional doodle from Elena, and began to write. He was documenting everything he had heard about aura, every scrap of information he could remember, every word that might help him on his journey.
Elena searched through her pile of storybooks, her small fingers flipping through pages until she found the one she wanted. "Papa," she said, holding it up, "read this one."
"After I finish writing," Yuuta said, not looking up.
"Papa," Elena insisted, "reading is more important than writing."
Yuuta laughed. "Is that so?"
"Elena knows everything," she declared, climbing onto the chair beside him. "Elena is very smart."
The apartment was peaceful.
Warm.
Ordinary.
Erza was not there.
She stood on the balcony, the glass door closed behind her, the night air cool against her skin. The moon hung low and silver, casting pale light across the city. Somewhere below, a car passed. Somewhere else, a dog barked.
The world continued, indifferent to her grief.
Her face was cold.
But her heart ached.
She thought of Yuri. His black hair. His violet eyes. The way he had knelt before her countless times and asked if he had any worth.
And every time, she had answered him.
Not as a mother.
As a queen.
She had given him permission to live.
Permission to fight.
Permission to serve.
But never the one thing he had truly wanted.
Her love.
Erza closed her eyes.
A child should never have to ask his mother if he has worth.
Yet Yuri had asked.
Again and again.
And she had never realized what he was truly seeking.
I treated him the worst, she thought bitterly.
I treated him like a soldier.
Like a criminal waiting to be judged.
Like a reminder of my pain.
Never like my son.
The realization felt like a blade twisting inside her chest.
How many times had he stood before her hoping she would smile?
How many times had he waited for a kind word?
How many times had he left disappointed because she was too blind to see what was right in front of her?
She didn’t know.
And somehow that hurt even more.
She turned her head.
Then,
A figure stood at the edge of the balcony, watching her.
Small. Black hair. Violet eyes.
Four years old.
The same age as Elena.
Erza’s breath caught. Her eyes widened in fear.
Her voice trembled when she spoke.
"Yuri."
The figure did not move. It simply watched her, silent and still, its violet eyes reflecting the moonlight. It was not a ghost, she knew that.
It was a not memory, not a projection or fragment of her guilt given form.
It was real.
Yuri was here.
But How?.
To be continued.
