Jellal and Erza stared at the man in horror as he uttered the woman's reasoning with no surprise.
Obviously, it was exceptionally difficult to come to terms with it. Which sane person would kill others for sport? And which mother would do the same?
"Our life is like a game to her. Do you remember how as children, we would wait for an insect to climb up and suddenly push it down, just to see it struggle and come up?
This is along the same lines, Jellal. You do not know the meaning of cruel until you've met her"
It was supposed to be an explanation, but all it managed to do was open the doors to countless questions. The older man anticipated it and continued to check his surroundings.
"Is she here?", Erza asked in a soft voice as she clutched onto Jellal's hand with all of her might.
"She will be. Before you worry, she will be here for me...not for you. Jellal is still not strong enough to grab her attention"
He flashed a soft smile at her and Erza's heart almost crushed itself on seeing that smile. It was one that did not belong on Jellal's face.
His eyes screamed of pain and torture and the smile that she treasured seemed obscenely fake. How much had he genuinely suffered? Why was fate always so cruel to him?
"If you needed to kill me to protect Erza, why didn't you try to attack me when I was much weaker? Why now?"
Erza furiously turned towards Jellal and flashed him one of her most ferocious glares. The man was unfazed, and a part of her knew that he had good intentions.
Perhaps the information he received from his older counterpart may help him in the future. But on the other hand, it could also give the other man the opportunity to break free and do the needful if he had gotten strong enough to travel through time.
"I told you, didn't I? I am not strong enough to travel through time. But our mother has the strength. During our fight, a part of me grew in strength. It was temporary and had its set of curses.
All I had was less than a millisecond to decide the spot to travel through time. I can't say I had the luxury to decide on the apt moment, and...it appears that luck, as usual, is not in my corner.
Don't worry, now. I have no reason to hurt you anymore. It's pointless. All I can say is...be prepared"
The man leaned against a rock and turned to the left, staring intently at a tree.
Questions ran inside Jellal's brain as they turned his cogs. Based on the way his eyebrows were scrunched together, Erza realised that Jellal was going through thousands of scenarios - thinking of ways how they could be exploited.
"You should have chosen another man, Erza"
The younger couple broke through their thought process as they heard the man utter the nonsensical phrase.
Erza did not bother to respond to him. He was not open to a debate, and he uttered what appeared to him as a fact. In the same way, his statement was exceptionally wrong in Erza's eyes.
"It took me so long to accept myself - I hated myself, and a part of me still does..."
Erza began to shiver as the fear of Jellal relapsing into self-loathing began to knock on her door. She audibly sighed and opened her mouth to protest until she felt Jellal tighten his grip around her waist.
"But I realised that by hurting myself, I was actually hurting the one I wanted to protect. I was making her life an everyday hell.
If my presence will bring danger to her, it is what it is. I will do everything I can to protect her, but I will not leave her. Even if it kills me, I am staying by her side.
Erza has acknowledged it. She knows that people will always be out for me and that our lives will constantly be in danger. She is an adult, and she can decide for herself. It is her choice to be with me, and mine to be with her. There is nothing more to it"
Erza tried hard but ultimately failed to hide the smile on her face. She knew it deep in her heart, but hearing it out loud from Jellal's mouth was a completely different matter. This shot down all paths of what-ifs and whatever remained of her insecurities.
"We have...we had older siblings, you know? Three older sisters and an older brother. It was no different for them.
Be born, suffer, and die, only for the whole cycle to repeat itself. You have no memories of your past life that would help you avoid any crucial mistakes.
Each and every time, they would be tantalizingly close to achieving an answer, only for her to enter her life and destroy the life they had built.
Do you know what happened to them?"
Erza could feel cold sweat run down Jellal's back and felt the slight shivering of his hands.
"Cryogenic sleep"
Ice magic. Was that the only option? To freeze themselves until the end of time to prevent their rebirth? Did Jellal have to do the same?
Even if he managed to do that, would the woman stop? She would latch on to the next child like a parasite.
"They had journals where they wrote down their thought processes, and what they went through"
Jellal and Erza could not stand to hear the pain they had gone through for more than a few minutes. But the older man had no intentions of stopping.
It was important for them to understand what they could potentially be facing one day. It hurt the man just as much as it did Jellal to bring the same pain to Erza, but that was the weight of her decision to stay with him.
"With this knowledge, could you have made any different decisions? If you had come across those journals at a younger age, perhaps..."
Jellal did not have the heart or the strength to complete his question. What he was asking was completely heartless and selfish. He knew it more than anyone else, but if it could help him prevent his life from spiralling down in that direction, it was a valid gamble.
The man stepped forward with newfound strength and stared at Jellal with pursed lips.
The markings over his body began to glow in a vibrant shade of red and he dropped down to his knees.
Words began to carve themselves all over his torso and blood poured down from his eyes.
"I read it when I was your age, Jellal. I lost every child of mine...one by one. Then it was their spouses, my friends...each day was a living hell. I feared for the next person I met. I was afraid if she saw me with them, she would kill them without remorse"
His magic grew rampant with his emotions as he yelled out in anguish.
"Even my grandchildren...she didn't spare children. I had to watch my three-year-old granddaughter burn to death right in front of my eyes, and I could do NOTHING!"
Uncertainty and concern rapidly grew in Erza's eyes as she saw the man visibly break down in front of her.
He was not at fault. The only one to blame was Jellal's mother. Her veins froze even as she thought about the mysterious sadist.
How pathetic of a woman was she to do that to her own children? As Erza thought about pressing further, she gazed upon his crestfallen face and lost all the willpower to do so.
But a question rose up in Erza's head. Why was Midnight alive? If everyone the older Jellal loved was targeted, why was one of his oldest comrades left alive?
The man had one solid look at her face and broke into a knowing smile.
"Midnight was alive because he was nowhere near me for the past couple of years. Perhaps she had better things to do than to stalk her son his entire life, but she missed him. He came back to the horizon a few months back when he fought Jellal.
It was his decision...to try and kill you. I did not stop him because I thought he was right"
Jellal maintained a blank expression and pursed his lips as the pieces of the puzzle slowly began to align themselves. While there was a lot left to interpret, the outlines of the situation had been drawn.
"Then what happened to your Erza? If we are one and the same, you know how much I treasure her and you know what I would do for her. How did she..."
Erza glared at Jellal and punched his stomach causing the man to wince in pain. Deep down, she knew that at the end of the day, it was an inevitable question that needed to be answered if they needed any chance to survive.
But was it not heartless to ask him the question? She knew more than anyone else how much he treasured her and how much she meant to him. It goes without saying that he would have done everything he knew to protect her.
The man bent down and showed the two of them the amulet he was wearing. He flicked it open and pulled something out of the small hidden compartment.
As he showed it to the two of them, they leaned forward to see what that thing was and Erza's eyes froze as she saw it.
It was a single strand of hair - and one that was of a very well-known shade of red.
"This...is all that remains of my Erza. She knew it...that the same way she came for our children, that bitch would come for her as well. No matter what I said...she would not leave.
Ignorance is bliss they say, and at times, I can't say I disagree.
I still remember the moment she died so vividly that I want to smash my head against something hard and hope I strike at the right spot and forget everything that happened to me.
She had lost an eye, and her right arm, and more than half of her stomach was lying on the ground. She...she was in absolutely no physical state to have rational thoughts!
I can recall her face like it happened yesterday. Both of us knew that we were going to die at that moment, and as always, she read me like an open book.
She had the most serene smile on her face - just like the one she had the day we had gotten married. She pushed me away, close to our granddaughter, and whispered, "I will always love you, now, back then, and even in our next time".
The next moment...", he paused and showed them the strand of hair. He did not have to say anything else. That was all that remained of his Erza.
Erza instantly knew what the man was thinking - it would have been better if she had yelled at him, stared at him in disappointment or betrayal. All he wanted was another excuse to hate himself.
She knew it, and she was stuck in a dilemma. A part of her wanted to comfort the older man, especially since all of what he was doing was for her sake, even if the actions he took were drastic and definitely not something she could appreciate. Another part of her didn't want to stare at him at all, as the main reason Jellal was hurt was because of him.
While Jellal did have his share of misdeeds, not one of them had taken place under his own wishes and authority. But this man attempted to kill his younger self out of his own volition.
With whatever remained of his strength, the older Jellal got up and walked towards a piece of land that seemed to flicker like a buggy lacrima phone.
While a lacrima phone could be fixed by changing and improving the magic, this one seemed to interfere with reality itself.
The moment he stepped into the range, it tore itself in two like a new dimension and a vicious arm reached out and grabbed onto the neck of the man, who smirked victoriously at the sight of the owner of the hand.
"There you are, you selfish piece of filth"