Yuiyui laid herself down beside her husband, her hand folded into his own, her long hair fell to the floor and her eyes squeezed tight against the pitch dark of the little room. With her eyes squeezed as tight as they were, she couldn't see the rough boards nailed into the wall to keep the cold of so many bitter winters from flowing over their bodies. It was 'barely' adequate to keep the snow from coming inside, so it was a total failure about the cold itself.
'It's the best we could do.' The thought was bitter as the last winter chill. 'She'll do better.' Yuiyui reminded herself for the twentieth time of her eldest daughter. 'Megumin won't have my life!' The words were ashes in her mouth, and left a bitter taste that she felt sure would never leave her.
The sound of Megumin's pleading voice, and the sound of flesh slapping flesh from one body to another, haunted Yuiyui's mind. No less so did the still fresh and crystalizing memory of her own response, to simply sit on her heels, hands in her lap, on the other side of the door to wait until she was sure the deed was done. 'She may never forgive me, and I won't blame her. But better that Megumin suffer for one hour like that, than live like this…' It was a relief her husband was asleep to not see the anguished way she looked at the veritable ruin that was their home.
Was she reminding herself? Or trying to convince herself she made the 'correct' choice. She couldn't even use the word 'right', when asking. A breeze from outside slipped through yet another forming crack in the wall to waft over the back of Yuiyui's head. 'Another place for the coming cold to freeze me to the bone.' She squeezed her husband's hand again.
His palm was warm, but not soft. Calluses covered the skin of his hands, sometimes she loved him for those, they were the result of such hard, desperate work to provide for her and for their children. Other times? She squeezed again, her nails dug into them, and her eyes opened long enough to look bitterly into the dark where the shrouded indentations of her nails were made. His callouses, the symbol of his effort and his failure, were so thick he didn't even feel them.
The bitter sound of 'slap' 'slap' 'slap' that she could hear through the door would not stop resounding through her mind like a wardrum. 'She won't go hungry… she won't… and she may leave me out in the cold, but she'll prevail on him to take care of her, their child, and her little sister at least.'
Yuiyui did not sleep that night. The blanket of darkness in the pockmarked and dilapidated room might not have been visible to the naked eye without the use of magic, but it was always visible in her mind.
When morning came, she was sure there were little red cracks around her naturally red eyes. Her limbs moved slowly when she heard the noise outside of her door, a little light streamed in through the cracks in the walls that were yet to be patched, but the fact that the little beams of light were low on the floor and came only through the lowest cracks in the wall was proof that the hour was still very, very early. 'What do I say?' Yuiyui wondered, it was far too early for the ones she'd enchanted into slumber to have come awake.
It had to be either Kazuma, or Megumin, and Yuiyui's mind drew a blank about what to say to either.
With agonizing slowness that seemed even slower than it was, she pushed herself up to her knees, releasing her hold on her husband's hand, turned, and faced the door. Her hands came out in front with palms on the floor, and she lowered her forehead to the tops of her knuckles. Whichever it was, this seemed right to her. Though it didn't stop the pounding in her heart.
The door slid open, without knowing which it was, Yuiyui let out a tiny, "I'm sorry."
The tap of wood on the floor that came from a staff was proof enough about who it was. But the bitter feminine voice that dripped each word like burning acid, only confirmed what Yuiyui already knew. "As if that could ever be enough." Megumin spat.
"I know." Yuiyui did not look up when she whispered the words.
"I'm leaving today. I can't stay here, I can barely look at you… you're… how could you? I'm your daughter…" Megumin's spiteful voice cracked, and a strange serenity came over Yuiyui.
Like that of a person who knew, and accepted, that there was no longer any hope, any way out, any tomorrow. The peace of the dead and damned, Yuiyui slowly stood up.
"Walk with me, one last time." The middle aged mother said, her head hanging low and hands folded in front of her waist. Her fingers lay limp and shaking, but this was the only sign of her distress.
Megumin didn't move from in front of the door when her mother took a step forward, she did raise her head to look up into mother's red eyes, and the taller adult didn't move forward again. "You want answers, don't you, Megumin?" Yuiyui asked. "Please."
Megumin did not move, she held her upward gaze, and silence passed.
"Please." Yuiyui said with the same gentle voice that Megumin recalled used to sing her to sleep.
It was enough. Megumin stepped aside, allowing her mother to pass by.
She fell into step behind the older woman, and Yuiyui said as she reached for the door that would take them outside, "Will you walk beside me?"
"I don't trust you enough for that." Megumin threw the words at her mother and snapped her mouth shut. Yuiyui flinched as if struck, but the young mage felt nothing but contempt.
The walk was a quiet one, taking them outside of the village and over to the river. Megumin knew the path like the back of her hand, it passed beneath tall trees and great high grass, thick bushes had been cleared out many, many times… though of late it was obvious the path was no longer as well maintained.
"How do you know this place?" Megumin inquired, looking at the back of her mother's head.
"I used to come here when I was your age." Yuiyui said with a wistful voice, she didn't look over her shoulder or turn around when she spoke, she looked straight ahead. The grass of the path crushed gently underfoot, their feet sank in the dew covered green that seemed like it had grown an extra finger length since the day before. "Who do you think made this path?" Yuiyui added, "I know this area like the back of my hand. Like I know you. Which is why I know what you're feeling right now."
Megumin didn't avert her eyes, or speak, not until they stepped beyond the grass and the rustling noise of the trees to find themselves beside the river itself.
"What do you know about it, Yuiyui?" Megumin used her mother's name and gripped her staff as if she needed something to embrace. "I trusted you, you're the one who is supposed to take care of me! Instead… instead you threw me to… to have that happen to me!" Megumin's eyes welled up, but her mother didn't turn around or hold out her arms as she once did to offer comfort.
Instead she went over to a brown patch of dirt with an old cast iron barrel still sitting there where it had been left after its last long ago use.
"You found this improvised pot here, didn't you?" Yuiyui asked of her daughter and placed a hand on the half rusty rim.
"Yes I did, it was a lucky find." Megumin gave a snort and tried to keep from crying, she vigorously wiped the back of her sleeve over her red eyes, and though she wanted to say more, she wasn't sure she could without tears flowing, and so she stopped.
"No, it wasn't. This was my pot." Yuiyui replied, "I found it in the old barn we now call home, who knows why it was there, but I found it when I was your little sister's age. I rolled it all the way here… can you imagine that?" Yuiyui still didn't look behind her.
Megumin still didn't answer or relax her grip on her staff.
"If you want to kill me for what I did, I don't blame you. Here is a good spot for it. But at least… at least you should understand why." Yuiyui spun on her heel and slapped a hand down on the pot, the metal clang caused birds to take to the wing and leave the bushes and branches where they perched, all the noise of the forest was briefly silenced by the drum-like sound.
Megumin was startled enough to take a little jump back; her heart skipped a beat, her staff came up to a defensive, spell casting posture stretched out in front of her, but Yuiyui only gave a fragile smile that was framed by falling tears.
The middle aged woman bit her lower lip to stop the trembling, and when it was clear that no spell was forthcoming, and the sound of the echoing metal finally stopped, she addressed her daughtered. "When you were much younger, I went out looking for you to bring you back for what passes for dinner in our home." She snorted, "Our home… pathetic, isn't it?" She looked past her daughter through the high green which obscured all but bits and fragments of the ruined barn they lived in. "I'd boiled some grains of rice, barely a handful, barely anything, you always complained our soup was salty, remember that?"
Megumin nodded.
"It's because I always cried while making it. You went hungry even if I went hungry first. You used to cry for more and there was just nothing I could give you. Your father, Eris bless him, works so hard and it's still not enough. Do you know why you got away with taking bread crusts for so long? You're no master thief, daughter of mine." Yuiyui clenched a slender fist and wiped angry tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
Megumin didn't answer, and her mother didn't wait for the prompt. "Because," Yuiyui said, "I went to the school and kowtowed to them. Explaining that times were hard and you were just hungry… so they kept putting them in the same place and ignoring the theft of the trash."
"Around that time, when that started happening, I came out looking for you and heard your little sister shouting, she sounded happy. Of course I followed the noise, and I stopped just out of sight… I saw you, using my old improvised pot… boiling river bugs. My babies… my little girls… eating bugs and being happy about it…" Yuiyui's bitter words were like acid on her own tongue, she held her shaking hands out in front of her, toward Megumin.
"That was when I knew." Her mother added.
"Knew what?" Megumin asked as she stepped back a bit, eyebrow raised and voice full of suspicion.
"That I was the worst mother… my children eating bugs just to stay alive, stealing bread, stealing other children's lunches; a good parent would never let things come to that. But it did, and not for a day, right up until the day you left. When you wrote home and told us about the young man-" Yuiyui stopped when Megumin spoke.
"Kazuma." The young mage replied with vitriol in her voice.
"Kazuma… yes." Yuiyui answered, humbly casting down her eyes, "He fed you, that was the first thing you wrote, and in that single sentence, I knew he was better than I. He didn't have to do that much, but he did, I knew even with all your other harsh words, you liked him. And I knew he was essentially good. He'd- He'd l-look after you… take care of you… wouldn't l-let you go hungry." Yuiyui's legs began to shake, she lost her hold on the barrel and fell to her knees. "I didn't want this for you!" She clutched at her patchwork of clothing and howled the words like they were knives in the gut.
Yuiyui's words were a fumbling jumble of syllables that were difficult to make out as they rushed past her tear stained lips and to her daughter's ears. "Kazuma is about to be rich, he has a nice home! You all eat every day, and not just enough to slow death down! I thought i-if something happened, even if it was something you hated for a few hours, it was b-better than hating your whole life! I'd rather you hate me than hate existing at all! I'm sorry!"
"I can't imagine how much it hurt, but now…?" Yuiyui blubbered and her body trembled, her hands folded into fists so tight that her nails dug into her palms and drew eight droplets of blood that had nowhere to go. "Now I don't have to worry about you, I may have failed you in the worst way, and betrayed a trust I'll never get back. But I did it so you wouldn't go down the same road I did. I'll never not be sorry for it, but to save you from a life on the edge of hunger? I had no other way open to me. If there had been, I'd have done it."
"Is that it? Is that everything, Yuiyui?" Megumin asked with quiet resolve, holding her staff out in front of her as if to cast a spell.
Yuiyui gave a slow, pathetic nod and her fist fell open and exposed the blood that now dripped the warmth of life down her limp, thin fingers to stain the dirt and grass.
"Yes, that is everything, I won't ask for your forgiveness, I don't deserve it. If you understand why, that is good enough for me, and if you still want my life, if that will bring you some closure? Then it's your right. Just please… be a better mother than I, and never let your baby go hungry. I hope to Eris you never understand what this was like for me." Yuiyui replied and with a long, deep breath, she opened her arms, cast her eyes to the sky, and waited for her daughter's explosion spell to end it all.
The staff held out at length, seconds past, but no incantation came, and slowly the wooden head lowered. "No, no I'm not going to do that, Yuiyui." Megumin replied with bitter revulsion.
"Just so you know, he didn't do it. He could have, maybe he even thought about it. But all I had to say was no, and he didn't." Megumin added, and the closed eyes of her mother became a frantic, wide open stare.
"He was a better guy than either of us realized, pervert or not." Megumin explained and stabbed the ground with the butt of her staff, it sank slightly into the soft ground with a squelch.
"You never had to worry about me living your life, because I'm not you and I didn't make your choices. I left the village, I left to become an adventurer!" Megumin exclaimed and slapped a hand over her chest, "I'm a really, really good one too! Why couldn't you just trust me to take care of myself! I can do that!" Megumin declared and slapped her chest with vigor. "I'm not just some helpless child. I'm finding my own way, I don't know where that leads, but I know it will be a long time before it leads me here again. If it ever does. Goodbye, Yuiyui. I'll send for my sister when things have settled down, I won't let you do this 'twice'. If you refuse to send her, I'll tell dad what you tried to get Kazuma to do."
Yuiyui gave a weak nod that was almost childlike in its own right. "I won't fight you… Megumin. I was going to ask you to take her when all was said and done, anyway. All I want is for your happiness, you may never really understand what it took for me to go that far, but it really was for your sake… I-I'm sorry." Yuiyui got it out again.
Megumin's stare was almost pitiful, and it ripped through Yuiyui like a hot knife through butter. Worse, was what her daughter said. "Just stay here for an hour or so, I'm going to say my goodbyes, I'll make up some excuse for the rest of them. You just tell them… I already said goodbye to you and I don't plan on saying it ever again."
The little mage spun on her heel and returned down the path, leaving Yuiyui to fall to all fours on the grass and water the ground with her sorrow and regret, unable to even raise her head to look at the retreating back.
When Megumin left the woman behind by a fair bit, she found herself confronted with Kazuma, who stood waiting with his back up against a tree and his arms crossed in front of him, one foot up and back against the bark with the other firmly planted on the ground.
"Did you say what you needed to?" He asked, his own watchful eyes looking over her with sympathy enough.
"I did, thank you for waiting for me." Megumin sniffled and wiped her nose, determined not to lose herself to her emotions a second time.
"Yeah well, don't make a habit of it." He said half-heartedly and pushed himself off the tree, "But just, every now and then… it's fine, crazy explody girl, you pack enough of a wallop that you're worth waiting on." He held his thumb and forefinger up before his eyes and kept the two fingers just barely apart, "Just a bit at least."
The charming boyish smile that came with the 'sort of' compliment was enough to make her chuckle against her will and she fell in at his left hand to walk the rest of the way back.
"Yeah well, you too. Now let's get going." Megumin replied, and that required Kazuma to say nothing, so all he did was take another step forward.