Disclaimer: Black Clover and its characters belong to Yūki Tabata.

-Presumption of innocence-

Prologue. Between the shadows

The leaks in the cell in which Yami had been imprisoned for about three months were increasingly abundant. The space was narrow, damp, dark and had only a battered bed and little else.

He was fed daily, at least enough so that he wouldn't starve, and he could wash himself relatively frequently. He hadn't received any visitors for two weeks, not since he was tried and his sentence was made public.

The trial was a kind of pantomime orchestrated by the high officials and nobility of the Clover Kingdom, Yami already knew his fate had been sealed the night he decided to act according to his impulses and not his reasoning. However, he did not regret letting his overprotectiveness, the most primitive and savage part of himself, take over his actions, because he could not forgive the guilty subject of his family's suffering. He knew that if he hadn't acted that night he wouldn't have been able to continue looking his wife in the face in the morning, go fishing on Sundays afternoons with his children, or wander quietly through any street in the kingdom without feeling that justice would not have be done if he did not take care of the matter personally.

The only thing he regretted was not being able to enjoy his family more. Of not telling Charlotte that she was precious and perfect every second of her life. Of not having taught Hikari how to use her katana and her magic with total precision. Of not having conveyed with full confidence to Hana that he was proud of her and that he didn't care that they were complete opposites. Of not having seen Einar blow out his birthday candles when he turned seven.

His only consolation was that he had loved intensely.

Yami was a man who didn't care about his surroundings. He never cared about what people thought, what they said, the many ways in which they repudiated him. The only thing that could really keep him up at night was knowing that some evil was afflicting one of his idiots; of those marginalized by society to whom no one gave a chance, except him.

The Black Bulls were born as a group of people who were considered useless, and who nobody wanted, with impossible dreams and were unable to achieve the simplest of goals that they had intended. The squad was a tribute too, but Yami didn't tell that story on a regular basis.

Over time, he realized that he had projected his soul into the squad and had chosen people who were just like him. People without opportunities, without dreams, without the desire to live on many occasions, or who did not have a defined course in life.

Because of that, he didn't care too much that he was the worst squad in the kingdom or that he himself was regarded as a nefarious Captain, because he knew that he could at least give a future and a home to a group of extraordinary people, that the society corrupted by money, the society obsessed with a person's amount of mana, and social status did not know or see. Or rather, that they didn't want to know or see.

But his luck didn't stop there. Just when Yami thought he had it all and couldn't hope for anything better to happen to him, Charlotte came into his life with an overwhelming intensity.

After discovering that the two of them had been in love with each other for a long time but neither of them being able to say it directly, he felt that they had wasted an enormous and too valuable amount of time, but, instead of concentrating on the hopelessly lost past, he decided to focus on the present and future that he knew would be wonderful, because the most beautiful woman and, one of the most capable and powerful warriors in the kingdom was going to share her life with him, who after all was a simple foreign commoner who did not usually please anyone.

Charlotte was a very special woman and, according to Yami, very rare too. Being noble, the most normal thing was that she would have acted like the others: with repulsion towards him. But, on the contrary, she was one of the few people who accepted him without questioning his origins, his habits or his customs, which had never been too exemplary.

After a few months together, they started a family. Or rather, they expanded it, because their squads really had been their family for a long time. Their children Hikari, Hana and Einar were born within ten years of them being together.

In addition, their idiots also managed to start their own families, giving the base a rejuvenated and joyful aura.

And with that image in mind Yami would stay. He didn't care about the last few months or the long hours in which he had stopped to think about everything he had done wrong in his life. He didn't care about the failures,setbacks, defeats, disappointments and betrayals, because his mind was only flooded with the moments in which he had truly managed to be happy.

"It's time," he heard from outside the cell.

He got up from the mattress, on which he had just sat on two minutes earlier, and the rusty springs squeaked somewhat loudly and irritatingly. He walked over to the bars and the jailer opened the door for him safely, being aware that he wouldn't try to escape, because the handcuffs he wore around his wrists suppressed his magic completely and because of all the conversations he had heard Yami have with his visitors the past few months, in which he had proclaimed again and again that he would accept all of the consequences of his actions, even the most serious and irreversible of ones.

He left the cell and was led out of that basement that served as the jail for the most dangerous of prisoners in the Clover Kingdom. The sun hit him directly in the face, nearly making him close his eyes completely because of the annoyance it caused. It had been so long since he had been able to feel the sunlight directly, that he had nearly forgotten what that sensation felt like.

After recovering and wishing he could smoke a cigarette right then, hug Charlotte and see his three children one last time, he continued walking towards his inevitable destination: death.

A/N:

First of all, I'd like to thank from the bottom of my heart to Lyra for translating this fanfic. This story is originally written in Spanish and she's the one who made this version in English possible.

Probably, a lot of you don't know me. I've been writing black clover fanfics since 2019 but in my first language, which is Spanish. This fanfic will include the following ships: yamichar, greyche, astelle and Vanessa x Finral. It will also include my OC's: Hikari, Hana and Einar, who are Yami's and Charlotte's children, Gael and Margaret, who are Grey's and Gauche's children, and Ayla and Aren, who are Asta's and Noelle's kids. Oh! Of course Alistar will appear too, he's William's son and belongs to Lyra, but she always let me include him in my stories.

Sorry if you find mistakes in this note, as I've said, English is not my first language.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoy this story a lot!