Mary saw the light mage's mood and hope came back to her, if only a little. Everything had been so bleak recently that seeing the tomato red face of her friend brought a bit of a smile to Mary's face.

"Maria-chan…?" Katarina-sama looked concerned. Not confused per se, but rather worried about the blonde "Is everything good?"

"Y-Yeah." The light mage shook her head "I… I think Mary-sama should go in next!"

Eh?

"May I know why?" Mary didn't mind, but that felt too forward for Maria-san to say. And maybe the lady had grown a bit paranoid, but she did worry about this small change.

Maria-san covered her face with her hands, making strange noises as she processed things in her own way. Mary exchanged a look with Katarina-sama, who looked as lost as Mary while their blonde friend decided what to say.

"I…!" Maria-san took a lungful of air and stopped while looking at Katarina-sama "I can't deal with him! He's so mean!"

"Like… Mean-mean or normal-mean?" Katarina-sama asked, waving her hand around "In a scale from puppy to dark magic, how bad are we talking about?"

The other two girls fell silent. They were used to Katarina-sama saying things that were out of place, but that had just been too dark.

"Err…" Maria-san tried to answer, as Katarina-sama seemed to be a little too out of the loop to really figure it out. At least that was normal "No, it's not that bad. It's just…"

She sighed.

"I'm just overreacting."

"Oh." Mary relaxed a bit at the confession "Well, take it easy Maria-san. This is a very stressful situation, so don't be too hard on yourself."

"Maria-chan has always been weak to Nicol-sama's jokes." Katarina-sama chimed in.

"I can hardly call his behavior 'joking'." Mary frowned "Only Katarina-sama would think that."

"I…"

"I'm not angry." Mary quickly added "But I can see why Maria-san wouldn't want to keep engaging in this situation."

"It's not that bad? Just go in and…" Katarina-sama stopped "Well, never mind..

Go in and do what?! She couldn't just leave the girls wondering like…! No, relax Mary. What was the point of this? Right, they needed Nicol-sama to be at his best. That was it. That was the main objective.

"I'll keep him company now, I suppose." Mary took the string of the conversation before it could get awkward "Is that fine with you, Katarina-sama?"

The lady looked up, caressing her chin. She stayed in that position for what felt like minutes, not doing anything but hum as she thought.

They hadn't spoken a lot since Maria-san entered, and Mary understood the lady was under great pressure. So she felt out of her depth as more time passed without anything changing. She wondered where Alan had gone, and wondered if perhaps they were missing something. The sliver of hope Maria-san had brought was dying way too fast, yet Mary kept herself from interrupting. She wanted to believe in Katarina-sama, and so she waited.

"Yes." Katarina-sama finally said "I'll keep Maria-chan company."

The blonde blushed, which Mary almost didn't notice. But she chose to put that aside for now. The weight in her chest bothering her, but not enough to not see this through.

"Well then."

She entered the room and found Nicol-sama staring through the window. Standing and giving her his back, Mary couldn't really get a read of him except for the tension that almost oozed out of his body.

Mary cleared her throat.

"Alan-sama hasn't come back." She informed him as the door was pushed closed behind her.

"I… Yes." Nicol-sama hesitated, probably holding back a biting retort as he turned to face her. He looked like he had gone through a fight, although he had no injuries.

It made Mary's heart drop to her stomach, almost overtaking the painful feeling from before. She found herself reaching out, and only barely stopped herself from crossing the distance and taking his face between her hands.

He looked so hurt she feared he'd crack under her touch. She intertwined her finger in front of herself as was customary for noble ladies.

"...What happened to you?" She didn't really think about it. Mary would've chosen her words better if she had given it a second of consideration. The way he popped back from the book came back to her memory, and the painful feeling turned hot and red from anger "Who did this to you?"

"I did this to myself." Nicol-sama looked away, expertly dodging the first question.

"Is there nothing in your skull, between your ears?" Mary asked reflexively "Look at me, sir."

"It's none of your concern." Nicol-sama frowned.

"Are you crazy? Whoever did this must be punished. You are an Ascart. Not a single hair in your head should be touched with ill intention. You do not let anyone get away with it. No one is above reproach!"

"You don't understand." Nicol-sama hissed but kept his expression more or less even "It has nothing to do with status. Hell, it doesn't have to do with any of you."

Mary had expected the metaphorical slap but she still reeled from it. To her, status shaped everything in the world. The cruel, bitter reality was that everyone was tied to theirs. And people would find ways to hurt you if you failed to uphold yours.

Like an iron maiden with spikes only long enough to leave a gap where you have to stay perfectly still. So too did Mary twist and turn in hers to stay out of trouble. In her home, at the academy, even around Katarina-sama's group. And especially around Nicol-sama. She had taken a good look at their rank, compared it to hers, and changed accordingly.

Doing whatever she wanted came at the cost of always being on her feet, always on top of trends, of what people talked in the corridors, and who was doing what to garner more attention. It became her pride, it became the platform upon which she built her power. She had taken these musts from society and made them her own power.

Nicol-sama thrived in taking them down. She knew this much. Yet she did the opposite, first and foremost, to not get hurt. To escape pain.

Seeing them discarded so easily not only deprived her of her power; but also opened a wound that had never truly healed. Mary always thought that, if she could be perfect for Katarina-sama's sake, then she'd be able to thrive in the world her sisters tried to drown her out in. Yet this wasn't the case.

So Mary swallowed her ire and fell back on what she knew.

"You say that, but it was Gerald-sama the one that sealed you within the book." Mary stated, proving at Nicol-sama's words as well as she could in her shaken mental state.

No wonder Maria-san ran away.

"It's not that." Nicol-sama hissed, proving that it was wholeheartedly what was making him so mad "It's in me. The problem is within me."

Ah, so he meant to say that he didn't feel this way because of the others. Nicol-sama was really good at drawing circles around problems, and having two very different conversations with each sentence. Mary now understood this, had seen it on full throttle while he gave information about Keith-san's situation back when the academy was under siege…

Mary could do this.

"I'm sorry for intruding." She said, looking at the floor "If it's your mind that is torturing you, then perhaps Nicol-sama could use a distraction?"

"I distracted myself for long enough." He replied bitterly "I didn't face it before, I ran away and deluded myself that it'd be fine if I…"

"If you turned your attention away from it." Mary finished, taking a deep breath "Nicol-sama, you were the one that told me to face reality. To boldly take my part or at least to fail trying."

Nicol-sama frowned.

"I didn't say such a thing."

"I might have misunderstood the meaning, as you are very adept at saying things without saying anything at all, but I believe the very same point applies here." Mary huffed, waving her hand to add to the information he had to take. Keeping his attention on her instead of his own thoughts.

She knew the feeling well enough. The doubt, the pain. She knew that, if left alone, someone like Nicol-sama would only spin around the topic. Hurting himself without actually getting anything done. He was the kind of person that simply laid on the filth, that accepted it and grew rotten without actually doing anything to help himself.

When he found out about Keith-sama, he became a warrior and a commander. He buried everyone's feelings of uneasiness and sadness and took them with him. He wielded them as weapons that shattered against reality, rebuilding them again and again with his own hands.

When they discovered the dark magic, he went straight to the Ministry alongside Gerald-sama. He took the darkness upon himself and tried to fight it without ever stopping to think how deeply he had sunk in the proverbial mud. Perhaps thinking that, as long as it was only his own person, it would be fine.

Nicol-sama was the kind of person that tried to stave off the storm with his own clothes. Trying his best to help, but not really paying attention to how his disregard to himself made things worse.

If left alone, Nicol-sama would drown in a glass of water.

He had gone on this long because Katarina-sama took him in, warmed him up with her brightness and cheerfulness. Staving off the darkness of the world so he didn't have to put himself in it. And Mary knew this because she felt just as helpless without that cheerful lady by her side.

"The truth might hurt but that's the way the world is." Mary informed him, making sure to sound condescending. Keeping his pride in her hands so he didn't have time to dwell on everything else "You said you would choose it no matter what. But I see no such a thing here. I see someone scared, I see someone that has given up."

That hit a nerve, she didn't relent.

"Have you given up, Nicol-sama? After all of this, after everything that happened?" She tilted her head, making sure to make it clear that her words were only rhetorical.

"It has nothing to do with you." Nicol-sama repeated, now meaning to hurt.

"That's! The! Problem!" Mary finally did what she meant to do at the beginning and took his face with her hands. His expression hardened "Why are you looking elsewhere when we are here? Why do you dwell in your own misery when we're hurting with you? Nicol-sama, you never looked away from Keith-san's situation. You never shied away from anything that was inconvenient or hurtful when the time came. Why do you do this now?"

She had tiptoed due to the height difference, but kept her expression even. She wouldn't have this ruined.

"Are you abandoning us?" The blow was hard, and probably hit truer than any insult would have.

Mary knew that she was being unfair. That she was denying Nicol-sama a fundamental part of being human by robbing him of experiencing the pain. And yet she did it without hesitation, without looking back or stopping to think how evil it was.

The same temperature that hardens the egg softens up the potato. It all came down to what each person needed, the way everyone dealt with life. Mary had made it her way to study people and the way they carried themselves; figuring out what made them tick, what made them struggle and break. She had closed her eyes to Katarina-sama's innocence in a vain attempt to feel safe, to delude herself into thinking she would be loved the way she wanted.

The man in front of her was the only one that cared enough to remind her this wasn't how the world worked. She wouldn't fault Katarina-sama due to her short sightedness; Mary knew the lady was like this and had accepted it. But she would be damned if she didn't return the favor.

To the cruel Nicol-sama that broke down her illusions of love and happiness.

To the soft-hearted Nicol-sama that took the hardest labors so no one else would have to.

To the lovely Nicol-sama that cared enough to make her stop and point in the right direction.

"Please don't leave us." Mary hit the nail once more. To make him think only of them was cruel, yet if she allowed this man to go through this alone he'd be put down by the evils that had taken root in their nation. This was no time to mourn "If you can listen to Katarina-sama's selfish requests, then heed a single one of mine: Stay with us. Be strong for us. And in return we'll make it so no pain can reach your heart. If you wish you had anything, we will give you something equal or better. If we can't close the wounds in your heart, then at least don't rest in a place we can't follow you."

She dropped her hands and hugged him, burying her face in his chest so he couldn't shake her off so easily. His heart was racing.

"The best revenge for being wronged is to live the best life you can. So instead of raging against your pain, close it off with the happiness you have here." Mary murmured, closing her eyes as she felt the young lord shaking.

"I lost someone…" He finally confessed "Someone so important…"

"Would they have wanted you to hurt yourself with their memory?" Mary ventured.

"...No."

"Then it sure sounds to me like you're wronging their memory." She said as softly as she could, trying to sound supportive in the face of the harshness of what she said.

It was good that it was about someone. Nicol-sama was the kind of person that would let himself fall to ruin. But he'd never abandon someone he held dear. Even if it hurt, even if it was uncomfortable, if it meant doing it for someone else's sake…

"...I know."

…Then he'd pull himself back every single time.

"Katarina-sama is worried about you." Mary didn't let go, hiding a small smile in the process "We don't want to leave you alone, but if you want to talk privately with her…"

"...!" She felt a shift in his breathing "Yes, please."

Even now, there were probably a lot of things only they could talk about.

"Then I'll see myself out." She let go.

His expression was devastated, but there was light where it hadn't been before. Mary was stunned into stopping. Seeing the cracks between his mind as he pulled himself together scared her, but she couldn't look away from it either. She wanted to cradle and reassure him. To gently make him feel safe.

And she knew that he'd never forgive her for it.

"I… I'll see if Alan-sama brought food!" She quickly turned around and left.

"Hunt."

Mary stopped.

"Yes?"

"You're really selfish." He said gravely.

"Yet twice already have I knocked some sense into you."

"You think you solved anything?" He looked rather offended at that.

"Why, Nicol-sama. Didn't you just figure out that talking about these things is the way to go? Do you think you figured it out by yourself?" She smiled at him smugly "You really overestimate your own intelligence."

"This is why I want Claes to talk to." He frowned.

"Katarina-sama is good for the soul." Mary nodded "I can only make you bothered, I'd think you at least noticed that much."

"Wha-!"

"Take it however you will." Mary turned around "But don't take too long. I'm not that nice."

Nicol-sama had given her space when she was sensitive, he made sure to make it clear he didn't want to take advantage of her. And she thanked him for it.

Mary wasn't that nice. She almost didn't hold herself back from taking advantage of him, because she knew this was her best chance of irreversibly leaving her mark on him. Almost.

She was twisted like that.