Training up on a frostbit mountaintop was supposed to be a great way to spend some time with Magna and Noelle, mess around on a snowy peak, and get stronger. But for Asta, what should've been a fun time getting knocked in the head and toasting marshmallows together with friends became something altogether worse.

The trio got comfortable enough with the frigid weather to split up, but the gentle snowfall near the peak accelerated into a full blown blizzard by the time evening fell. Asta thought he'd barely wandered off from his squadmates at all, but the stretch of mountain he'd found himself on was unfamiliar, and without the warmth of Magna's fire, a shivering chatter had settled into the knight's teeth.

He wandered around, huddling into himself to stave off the chills as he called out for his friends, but when his latest shout echoed back without reply, he felt something strange seep into his shoe. Whatever the substance was, it was room temperature, sticky, and purple; contrasting sharply against the fresh powder. His first instinct was to draw his grimoire and swords, but before Asta could reach down or examine it, he was yanked violently by the leg into a crag, and the sudden jolt shocked him enough that he lost his grip on his weapons.

The slime consumed more of Asta's body as he was pulled away skyward, inside the indented cliff face. By the end of his ascent, the boy was coated in enough sludge that it felt almost like a second layer. Once Asta looked away from his sticky purple cocoon, he came face to face with an opponent he could never defeat, and certainly not one he every wanted to fight again: Sally, standing alone in the icy cavern if not for the heavy equipment on standby.

The wicked scientist beamed as she regarded the upside-down knight in this unguarded state. He was completely disarmed; no grimoire, no anti-magic, and his swords a distant black silhouette on the snow far, far below him. Goop encased each of Asta's limbs and immobilized the boy completely while Sally examined him like he was a lab rat.

Few things were so terrifying to Asta as being bound, and the girl studying the fear in his eyes was the one who taught him that fear. His strength was meaningless inside these gelatinous tendrils. He was held fast as the scientist drew out a scalpel and started talking to herself over the blustering snowstorm. "Subject is the anti-magic boy. In a moment of fortune, I've found him isolated from his teammates, and my experiments may begin without interruption."

"Hey! You can't just experiment on people without their permission!" Asta shouted as he was carried deeper into the cavern, offended to be ignored and studied at once, "Let me go! You— Mmphh!!"

His words were stopped cold by Sally shoving a slime-coated hand into his mouth, interrupting the knight with a smirk, "—Muscle relaxant administered. Subject is as loud as noted, but resistance should be over soon. Proper experimentation begins next, I'm laying the anti-magic boy down now."

Asta gagged on the putrid slime as it soaked into his open mouth, and tried to ignore its flavor as Sally brought her scalpel toward his chest. Bracing himself for the cold, agonizing sting of a knife sinking into his flesh, Asta clamped his eyes shut and grit his teeth.

But he didn't feel the pain of her blade, just the freezing bite of night air rushing over his bare chest as his shirt was sliced open.He began to shiver from fear and cold in equal measure while Sally loomed over his body; dragging the flat of her razor along his exposed skin. Giving Asta's ribs a hard bite to hear him yell again, the girl grabbed his belt and undid the buckle. The terrified young knight kicked and thrashed, but just like all their other encounters, Sally's disgusting slime magic made his every struggle useless.

"Hey! What are you doing!? Stop!!" Asta cried as his pants were rent apart and torn away by her knife.

"I need a better feel for this weird body of yours in preparation for the ireal/i experiments." She explained, playing with and tasting the exposed skin laid out before her. "Let me get intimate before I make that first incision…"

The merest sensation of her tongue made his flesh crawl, but as Asta tried to scream for his friends, Sally gagged him by flooding his mouth with more slime; almost enough to suffocate the young knight. Smothered, cold, and in pain, Asta felt his body begin to go limp underneath the scientist when he needed that strength most.

"Noelle… hhrk…"

Chuckling while his screams were muffled by the snowstorm and gelatin, Sally hooked a couple fingers into his boxers with an evil glint in her eyes. After she'd torn the last piece of clothing off his body, the crazed researcher reached down toward him, and Asta woke up screaming bloody murder; drenched in a cold sweat.

From his position on the sofa, Asta could hear his cry echoing off the castle walls and into deeper chambers than just the foyer where he'd napped. His nightmares usually ended right there, when Sally stole his last piece of clothing, but there were times when the wicked scientist went imuch/i further, and every time the memory hit, Asta found himself crying.

He was desperate not to let anybody see him like this; the magicless knight spent his entire life trying to become the strongest, but whenever his encounter with Sally came flashing back, he felt so weak, so small, and so completely helpless. Asta was clutching at himself, trying so hard to feel safe again, that he didn't realize he was sobbing on the couch. Wiping at his tears, and trying to make his breathing even again, Asta heard clicking bootsteps enter the foyer— he immediately knew they were Vanessa's, because nobody else wore high heels around the base.

The first thing Asta tried to do was hide from her, but with his lungs seized, he couldn't move an inch. The witch herself was searching for something from the moment she entered the room, and when she caught sight of the boy fighting for air in his favorite napping spot, her face seemed to say, 'Thank goodness I found him'.

The pink-haired woman slipped further into the foyer and cleared her throat, stumbling as she softly asked, "Hey, Asta, I heard a s-scream… is everything all right in here?"

A stifled sob left Asta, and even though he was turned away from the oft-inebriated witch, the boy put a smile on his teary eyed face before replying. "Yup! I'm A-okay! There's nothing to worry about here!"

"I'm sure it's not nothing. You scream a lot, but n-not like that." The string mage said, sitting down beside Asta as quietly as she could, "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Aw, come on, I just told you not to worry about me."

"But I'm already worried, you've been acting…" Vanessa searched the air for an appropriate word, "different, lately."

"Then let's change the subject." Asta said, his smile a sunbeam in the dark.

"We don't have to talk, talk about it, but please don't ignore your problems."

"NO! I'm not ignoring anything, dammit!" Asta shouted through teary eyes, "I'm just gonna keep smiling until the problem goes away! Like I always do!"

"I don't want to pressure you, but I n-need you to tell me what's going on. Please, let me in so I can help— your pr-problems won't go away on their own."

Forcing his smile got harder and harder, and the anti-magic boy wrapped himself tight in his own arms, drawing inward and refusing to meet the other knight's eyes. "I know it's you Grey. How is it fair for me to open up when you get to hide…"

'Vanessa' drew back slightly, searching for an explanation before she said, "Well… I, I guess it, it isn't fair."

A 'poof' sound spread through the room, and Asta felt a tiny gust chill the teardrops on his face. He looked up again and saw blue hair forming a proscenium around a blushing face. Grey had both hands over their stuttering mouth, but moved them to down to her lap so the boy could see her properly.

They asked him again, "C-c-can you please tell me what's wrong? I w-want to help." and Asta physically felt how much effort Grey had to put into keeping themselves unshielded by their magic.

He hugged the cushion tighter—so tight that its seams started to rip—and surprised himself as he actually began to talk, "I had the nightmare… again. The one with Sally."

"I d-don't think you've told me about it before. Can you s-s-say more?" Grey asked, with a deeply concerned look. They kept their body language as open as the shorter boy had ever seen, yet maintained a sense of protectiveness that let him relax for the first time that day. It was clear that Grey wasn't judging him in the slightest, so to the surprise of Asta himself, he started recounting his nightmares.

"It's the dream where Sally captures me… and, and takes all my clothes… and uses her slime so I can't fight back." Asta said, crying softly, just close enough for Grey to hold him, "Then she uses me as a test subject… and I'm screaming for help, but I, I, I can't breathe, and I, and I—."

"–It's okay. It's okay Asta, it was just a dream."

"But it wasn't!" The boy screamed, shoving away from Grey's touch, "She actually raped me— and It's like every time I close my eyes Sally's there! Why do I have to go through it again?! Why the Hell can't I feel safe!? I'm terrified of going to sleep! And you—!"

He stopped himself, terrified he'd said too much, and apologized as his voice died down into a hoarse whisper, "I, I'm sorry for yelling…"

Pulling himself into a tight embrace with the girl, Asta let his teardrops fall. "I'm just so scared."

"It's okay Asta, it's okay, you're safe." Grey said, patting his back as his choked, hiccuping sobs were muffled in their shoulder. The blue haired enbie found themselves crying too as they tried to comfort him; feeling his hands grip desperately at the hem of their robe, they held him back even tighter as he bawled. "Everyone here is, is a friend. Nobody's g-gonna let you get hurt."

Asta kept hugging and shivering in her arms, grateful to have someone to hold, but afraid that he was being a nuisance. He wasn't sure how long it took, but his tears and snot eventually slowed down to a near stop, despite how hard it still was to breathe.

"C-could you please give me your hand?" Grey asked in their softest voice, waiting until after Asta'd stopped shaking to back away slightly.

"Okay…" he said, extending his arm.

"I want you to check really close Asta, d-do you see anything unusual on your arm?"

"No?"

The blue-haired mage used their other hand to point at specific spots on Asta's arm, and had him scrutinize the patches of skin singled out. The boy's sniffling got quieter as he focused to find what Grey wanted him to see, but soon enough, he was too confused to continue his search.

"Grey, there's nothing there." Asta said with a quiet hiccup.

"Th-That's a relief. So there's n-n-nothing else on your mind."

"What was that?" He asked, amazed that his breathing had evened out despite the fresh teardrops on his face.

"Mindfulness. A very special person taught me how to do it, and it's w-what I do when there's too much emotion for me to handle." Grey told him, a wistful look on their face.

"You have a powerful smile, Asta, but please rem-remember that a smile doesn't always help. There are times when the strongest men n-need to cry."

"But Magna would laugh if he caught me crying. He's probably disgusted that I couldn't even save myself…"

"What? No, he wouldn't— Magna cries all the time, and he's been worried s-sick about you." Grey said, shocked by the boy's words. "He's b-b-been b-beating himself up for weeks about something that happened w-when you two were out training with Noelle. Wait, was that when—?"

"I was stupid. I wandered off by myself, and let myself get caught. Sally barely had to try… it was my fault."

"Asta, you were a-attacked. The onl-only person to blame is, is Sally."

"But it still feels like my fault! Magna… he'd never let me live this down."

"Asta, he already knows what happened, and he wants to help. Y-you should tell him and N-N-Noelle that you're okay."

"…what if I'm not okay?"

Grey's stutter vanished as they grabbed his shoulders, letting the boy know, "Then you can tell them you're not okay."

Asta's eyes glistened with welling tears, droplets threatening to escape the moment he blinked and add to the overwhelming taste of salt in his mouth. Hunched forward, trying not to sob, the answer he gave Grey wasn't to anything asked of him. "I… I don't know if Noelle knows what happened…"

Asta grabbed around Grey's back in a desperate hug, and pleaded into their collar as he trembled, "Please, please, don't tell anyone. God, please don't tell anyone."

"I won't. Not a soul, As-Asta. Not until you're ready."

Grey lifted his tear-soaked face away from their wetted shoulder, and handed him a cushion to hold while she wiped some of the wetness away from Asta's cheeks. It sank in as they regarded the younger knight just how exhausted he looked—like he'd been losing sleep for weeks. So by her hand, a second couch pillow was transformed into a quilt and wrapped extra-snug around Asta. She tugged the edges in place and tried to stand up, but came to a gentle stop.

"Hey, Miss Grey?" Asta asked, tugging on their cape through the sheets. "Can you maybe stay here a bit longer?"

The bluette mage looked back and grabbed a third pillow in lieu of a proper response, transforming it into another blanket. Wrapping themselves up tight beside Asta on the couch, they said, "Of course. I'll stay as, as, as long as you need."

"Thanks Miss Grey. I feel safer with you here."

The pair sat on the sofa snuggled up in silence, but after only a few minutes of quiet commiseration, Grey heard snoring. Their littler friend was getting some much needed shuteye; his tear-stained face buried cozily in cushions and quilts like a baby caterpillar.

A couple other knights wandered into the foyer, and Grey raised a finger to their lips to indicate an extreme need for quiet. Despite Luck and Vanessa's usual rowdiness, the look their shy friend shot them convinced them that they should tiptoe out of the room much, much sooner than later. The duo looked almost scared as they fled the hall. Under Grey's auspices, Asta slept peacefully, with dreams about things that wouldn't make a lick of sense after waking.

Finally feeling safe enough to rest, he leant on their shoulder and stayed asleep until the next day broke.

——————————————

A sunbeam flitting across Asta's face drudged him from the only full night's sleep he'd had in a week; his nightmares kept at bay by an unexpected guardian. But as the boy peered around the foyer, he saw the room barren besides the ancient furniture, without Grey or any other living soul in sight.

Even the blanket had turned back into the pillow it once was, and Asta tried not to feel abandoned as the sensation of loneliness sank in. When he tried reaching out for someone to hold and found nothing but the musty castle air, he felt so impossibly alone.

Asta considered making breakfast, but he wasn't hungry. Not in the slightest.