Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia. Namco does.

This takes place on the way from Palmacosta to Hakonesia Peaks.

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It had only been a few weeks already since Kratos had been forced by circumstance to let Lloyd join up with them. During that short time, he had had more stress than he had had during the entire last decade. He had thought that nothing could possibly make him feel worse than the fact that he wasn't able to protect his son. Now he knew that his failure had made his son dumber than he was a little kid. The thought that Lloyd was learning multiplication, astronomy, and history at the age of five but not having mastered addition at the age of sixteen made the feeling that much worse. It must have been due to hitting his head multiple times as he fell down the cliff during the battle that resulted in Anna's death. On top of that, his teacher used corporal punishment. It wasn't that he believed that corporal punishment was wrong, but booting a kid in the face went way past the line. Then there was the mayor that had made his way into Kratos' mental hit list. He was such a lousy father for allowing his son to have been raised in such a hostile environment. The mercenary's thoughts were rudely interrupted by an annoying sound.

"But Professor…," Lloyd whined. Kratos looked over and saw Lloyd bawling in front of some grocery bags. Raine sighed and went over the concept of money and its wise usage.

"Lloyd, we're low on money. We have to buy whatever is cheap, and these were all half off at the Palmacosta marketplace. Until we get more, we can't go buying whatever we like. If we do, we'll waste it all, and we won't be able to eat later," Raine explained. Dismissing this as Lloyd wanting meat instead of cheap fruits and vegetables, Kratos turned his attention back to Genis who had been spouting questions about magic and any higher level spells the mercenary might have seen in his travels. Just as he was about to tone out the noise and make up something about seeing the Thunder Blade spell since it would be useful at the Seal of Water later on, Lloyd's cried out, smacking his head on a nearby tree.

"Professor, this is torture! There are twenty slices of bread and eighty slices of tomato! That means we'll have eight slices of tomato in every sandwich!!"

Genis and Raine gaped. As far as they knew, Lloyd still hadn't mastered addition after the point where he ran out of fingers. Kratos reveled in the fact that maybe his son wasn't completely without hope of normal intelligence after all. At the same time, he cringed inwardly and fought back the urge to hurl.

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