I'm Not Your Husband, You Evil Dragon!

Erza stared at Yuuta as the atmosphere inside the apartment changed completely.

Only minutes ago, this had been a conversation between husband and wife, but now it felt disturbingly close to a battlefield.

Yuuta stood opposite her despite the exhaustion still weighing upon his body, his newly awakened aura flowing around him while his crimson eyes demanded an answer she had already decided she could never give.

Erza couldn’t understand why he was so stubborn about uncovering the truth.

She understood that it belonged to him, and perhaps that was exactly why he refused to let it go, but after witnessing what happened only moments ago, none of that mattered anymore.

She had seen him screaming.

She had watched blood pour from his eyes, ears, and nose while his own memories tore through his mind.

Whatever anger Yuuta felt toward her was something she could endure.

She would not risk his life again.

I won’t make the same mistake again.

Erza’s fingers slowly tightened.

Never again.

Yet Yuuta remained directly before her, waiting for the truth she had just sworn to keep from him. There were only two choices left.

She could answer him and risk triggering the Crown Seal again, or she could remove the memory of this confrontation before Yuuta found another way to force himself toward the truth.

Erza closed her eyes.

She already knew which choice she would make.

Forgive me, Yuuta.

Her expression hardened.

You can hate me afterward if you somehow remember. But I would rather have you hate me than watch you die in front of me.

For several seconds, Erza remained completely still. Then her violet eyes opened, and whatever hesitation had remained inside them disappeared.

She moved.

Yuuta’s eyes widened.

Erza crossed the distance between them almost instantly, moving before Yuuta could fully understand what she intended to do.

One hand rose toward his head as pale light gathered around her fingers, the same magical glow that had accompanied the spell only moments earlier.

Yuuta immediately understood.

She’s doing it again.

His body reacted before his thoughts could catch up.

Erza’s glowing hand reached toward him, intending to put him to sleep first.

This time she wouldn’t allow him to experience any pain or confusion. She would make him unconscious, carefully erase everything connected to this confrontation, heal the wounds on his palm, destroy whatever evidence remained, and make absolutely certain he could never push himself toward the Crown Seal again.

Her fingers were about to touch him.

Then Yuuta disappeared from in front of her.

Erza’s eyes widened.

"What...?"

Her hand passed through empty air.

For the first time since the confrontation began, genuine surprise appeared across Erza’s face. She immediately turned her head and found Yuuta several steps away, bent slightly forward while breathing heavily.

His legs were trembling from exhaustion, and sweat had already formed across his forehead, yet somehow he had moved away at precisely the right moment.

Yuuta himself seemed shocked.

He hadn’t consciously planned the movement.

The instant he saw Erza’s shoulder shift and the light gathering around her hand, something inside his body had screamed at him to move.

His muscles had reacted almost instinctively, carrying him away before his mind could properly process the attack.

Erza stared at him.

He had dodged her.

Of course, she hadn’t used even a fraction of her true speed.

She had approached him carefully because she had absolutely no intention of hurting him. But even restrained, that movement should have been far beyond what an ordinary human could properly follow.

Yet Yuuta had seen it.

More importantly, he had predicted it.

The recent battles he had survived, the monsters he had faced, and the constant moments where death had approached him from directions he couldn’t anticipate had slowly changed the way his body reacted to danger.

He hadn’t become faster than Erza. He hadn’t suddenly reached her level.

He had simply learned to recognize the beginning of an attack.

Erza’s lips parted slightly.

For the briefest moment, something warm surfaced beneath all the fear inside her.

He really has become stronger.

She wanted to smile.

She wanted to feel proud.

Only minutes earlier, seeing Yuuta’s aura had filled her with the same happiness. She had believed his growth meant the Crown Seal was finally losing its control over him.

She had allowed herself to imagine that perhaps her mortal was finally beginning the journey toward becoming someone who could remain beside her for far longer than an ordinary human lifetime.

That hope had nearly killed him.

Erza’s expression immediately hardened.

"No."

She whispered the word to herself, crushing the happiness before it could grow.

She wouldn’t do this again.

She wouldn’t see one impressive display of strength and immediately convince herself that Yuuta was ready. She wouldn’t allow love, pride, or hope to blind her to what she had witnessed with her own eyes.

Yuuta straightened himself as much as his exhausted body allowed. His breathing remained heavy, but his crimson eyes never left Erza.

"So..."

His voice trembled.

"You really were going to do it again."

Erza’s heart tightened.

Yuuta looked at the faint light still surrounding her hand before returning his gaze to her face. Whatever tiny hope he had been holding onto seemed to disappear from his eyes.

"You weren’t even going to answer me."

Erza slowly lowered her glowing hand, but the tension between them didn’t disappear. Yuuta remained several steps away from her, breathing heavily as his newly awakened aura continued flowing around his exhausted body. His crimson eyes never left her, and the more Erza looked at him, the more frustrated she became with his refusal to understand the danger he was placing himself in.

"Yuuta, you don’t understand."

"Then make me understand!"

His voice rose with frustration, and his aura surged alongside his emotions. The energy around his body became increasingly unstable, flickering through the apartment while Yuuta’s hands tightened into fists.

Erza’s patience finally cracked.

"WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU FOOL?!"

Her own voice thundered through the apartment as a portion of her aura escaped with it. The pressure immediately overwhelmed Yuuta’s newly awakened energy, making the difference between them painfully obvious, but Erza wasn’t trying to intimidate him.

She was frustrated, frightened, and still haunted by the image of Yuuta bleeding in her arms only minutes earlier.

"I’m doing this for you!" Erza continued, her violet eyes trembling despite the anger in her voice. "Everything I’m doing right now is because I’m trying to keep you alive! Why can’t you understand something so simple?!"

Yuuta stared at her.

"For me...?"

His expression slowly changed.

"Yes!"

Erza stepped forward.

"For you!"

Yuuta’s teeth clenched.

"But I never asked you to!"

Erza stopped.

Yuuta’s voice echoed through the apartment, and for the first time, the frustration on Erza’s face weakened.

"I never asked you to erase my memories. I never asked you to decide what I’m allowed to know. I never asked anyone to decide any of this for me!"

Erza’s aura flared again as her emotions became increasingly difficult to control.

"Because you don’t know what you’re asking for!"

Her voice cracked with frustration.

"Why are you so stubborn about learning something that can kill you?! Why are you willing to risk your life just to know something about the past?! Tell me, Yuuta. Why?!"

Yuuta froze.

For several seconds, he simply stared at her.

"Why...?"

His voice became quieter.

Erza could see something changing in his expression. The anger remained, but underneath it came something much older and far more painful.

"You asked me why?"

Yuuta’s fist tightened until his injured palm began bleeding again. His newly awakened aura trembled around him, no longer responding to anger alone. Memories he had spent years trying not to think about slowly returned, and the first tear slipped down his cheek before he could stop it.

"Do you know what loneliness feels like, Erza?"

Erza’s anger disappeared.

Yuuta looked directly into her eyes.

"Do you know what it’s like to wake up every day wondering why nobody wants you?"

His voice trembled, but he continued.

"Do you know what it’s like to spend your childhood searching every face you see because maybe... just maybe... one of them could be your mother?"

Another tear rolled down his cheek.

"Or your father?"

Erza remained completely still.

Yuuta’s breathing became uneven as memories of the orphanage surfaced one after another. He remembered sitting among other children whenever visitors arrived. He remembered watching adults walk through the halls, speaking with the caretakers while every child secretly wondered whether that day would finally be theirs.

"I used to wait, Erza."

His voice cracked.

"Every time someone came to the orphanage, I waited."

Yuuta gave a weak, painful laugh as tears continued falling.

"I would sit there and think maybe this time someone would look at me and say, ’That boy. I want him.’"

Erza’s lips slowly parted.

"But they never did."

Yuuta lowered his eyes.

"I watched other children leave."

His aura gradually weakened around him, but his emotions only became heavier.

"One after another."

He swallowed painfully.

"Someone would get a mother. Someone would get a father. Someone would finally have a home, and everyone would celebrate for them."

Yuuta pressed his bloody fist against his chest.

"And I was happy for them. I really was."

His face twisted painfully.

"But every time they walked through those doors with their new family, there was always this stupid little voice inside my head asking..."

Yuuta struggled to breathe for a moment.

*Why not me?*

He didn’t need to say the words loudly. Erza could hear them clearly enough in the way his voice broke.

"I started wondering what was wrong with me."

Erza’s violet eyes widened.

"I wondered if maybe they could see something I couldn’t. Maybe there really was something wrong with my eyes. Maybe the other children were right when they called me cursed."

Yuuta wiped his cheek roughly, but another tear immediately replaced the one he removed.

"I used to look at myself and wonder what I needed to change so someone would finally want me."

Erza’s fingers trembled.

"Yuuta..."

"Do you know what the worst part was?"

He looked at her again.

"It wasn’t even being alone."

His lips trembled.

"It was not knowing why."

Those words silenced Erza completely.

"If my parents abandoned me because they hated me, then tell me that. If they’re dead, tell me they’re dead. If I was created in some laboratory and never had parents in the first place, then tell me that too!"

Yuuta’s voice grew louder as years of buried frustration finally poured out of him.

"I don’t care anymore!"

His tears fell freely now.

"I was a child, Erza. I didn’t understand Children of chaos, souls, aura, or whatever else all of you apparently know about me. I was just a kid watching everyone else get mothers and fathers while I stayed behind."

"I just want an answer!"

Yuuta pressed a trembling hand against his chest.

"So I started asking God."

Erza went completely still.

"I asked Him what I did wrong."

Yuuta’s voice broke.

"What sin did I commit?"

Tears streamed freely down his cheeks now.

"Did I anger Him somehow? Did I do something so horrible that He decided I should grow up without ever knowing who my mother and father were?"

Erza felt something painful tighten inside her chest.

"Yuuta..."

"No, tell me!"

His voice rose again, but there was no rage behind it anymore. It was desperation, raw and exhausted after being buried for far too long.

"Tell me, Erza! What did I do?!"

Erza couldn’t answer.

Yuuta stared at her through his tears.

"What did that little boy do to deserve waking up every day wondering why nobody wanted him?"

His aura flickered around him, no longer violent or threatening. It trembled with him, rising and falling with every broken breath.

"Do you know how many times I wondered if my mother abandoned me because she hated me? Do you know how many times I wondered if my father saw me once and decided I wasn’t worth keeping?"

Erza’s face slowly changed.

Until now, she had believed she understood why Yuuta wanted the truth. She thought it was curiosity. She thought the strange events surrounding him had made him suspicious, and his stubborn personality simply refused to tolerate people keeping secrets from him.

She had been wrong.

Yuuta wasn’t chasing some mysterious origin because he wanted power.

He wasn’t trying to uncover his past because it sounded exciting.

He was still searching for the answer to a question a lonely child had asked years ago.

Why was I abandoned?

Erza’s fingers slowly loosened.

Yuuta looked down at his bloodied palm, his shoulders trembling as another memory surfaced.

"And now I finally find out that maybe there actually is an answer."

His voice became quieter.

"Maybe there is a reason I was alone."

He looked at Erza again.

"Maybe my parents didn’t abandon me."

Erza’s heart tightened.

"Maybe someone took me from them. Maybe they’re dead. Maybe they never even knew I survived. Maybe everything I believed about my childhood was wrong."

Yuuta took a shaky breath.

"I don’t know."

His crimson eyes remained fixed on hers.

"That’s the problem, Erza."

"I don’t know anything."

For once, Erza had no argument waiting for him.

Yuuta wiped his tears, but his hand was shaking too badly to hide them.

"So when you ask me why I’m stubborn about finding the truth..."

His voice cracked again.

"...it’s because I need to know whether that little boy spent his entire childhood blaming himself for something that was never his fault."

Erza’s violet eyes widened as Yuuta’s words finally revealed what he had been carrying all these years. He wanted an answer to the question that had haunted him since childhood.

But understanding his pain didn’t change what she had witnessed only minutes ago.

Erza could still see the blood pouring from his eyes. She could still feel his body convulsing violently between her arms while his mind collapsed beneath memories it wasn’t ready to endure. Yuuta’s pain was real, but so was the Crown Seal, and Erza refused to let sympathy drag her into making the same foolish mistake twice.

Her gaze slowly dropped.

"I’m sorry, Yuuta."

Yuuta’s expression changed slightly.

Erza lowered her head, unable to meet his eyes for several seconds. Everything inside her wanted to comfort him after hearing what his childhood had been like, yet the one thing he wanted from her was the only thing she couldn’t give.

"I can’t tell you."

Yuuta stared at her.

Erza forced herself to continue.

"I understand now why you want to know. Maybe I should have understood sooner, and maybe keeping you in the dark has hurt you more than I realized." Her fingers tightened against her dress as another tear slipped down her cheek. "But even knowing that... I still can’t tell you."

Yuuta’s aura became restless around him.

Erza finally raised her head and looked directly into his crimson eyes.

"Even if you hate me for it, I won’t tell you. Even if you beg me every single day, I won’t reveal something that could harm you."

Her voice trembled, but her decision didn’t.

"Please, Yuuta. I don’t want to see you like that again. I don’t want to hold you while you’re hurt because I was foolish enough to believe everything would somehow be fine."

She took a shaky breath.

"So please..."

Erza’s expression softened completely.

"Let this end here."

Yuuta said nothing.

"Please, Yuuta."

Her voice finally broke.

"I love you."

Those three words hung between them.

Erza pressed one hand against her chest as tears continued gathering in her eyes. She wasn’t saying it to manipulate him or silence him. To her, it was the simplest explanation she could give for everything she was doing.

"I love you, and that’s exactly why I’m doing this. I would rather have you angry with me than dead because of me. So please... understand that and let this end here."

Yuuta’s expression slowly became blank.

His mind was already exhausted from everything that had happened, but that single word somehow managed to cut through all of it.

Love.

His crimson eyes lowered.

"...Love?"

Erza watched him carefully.

Yuuta repeated it as though the word itself had suddenly become unfamiliar.

"Love..."

A weak laugh escaped his lips.

Then another followed.

"Haha..."

Erza’s eyebrows slowly pulled together.

Yuuta lifted one hand toward his face, laughing quietly while fresh tears rolled beneath his fingers. There was no happiness in the sound. It was the same bitter disbelief from earlier, as though Erza had just said something so absurd that his exhausted mind couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

"Really...?"

Yuuta slowly looked at her.

"You’re calling this love?"

Erza’s chest tightened.

"Yes."

There was no hesitation in her answer.

"I am."

Yuuta stared at her for several seconds.

"I love you, Yuuta," Erza repeated, quieter this time. "I’m serious."

The laughter disappeared from Yuuta’s face.

"No."

Erza blinked.

Yuuta slowly shook his head.

"That’s not love, Erza."

Her expression froze.

"What...?"

"Whatever you’re feeling toward me..."

Yuuta’s bloody fist slowly tightened.

"...that’s not love."

Pain immediately appeared across Erza’s face.

"What are you talking about?"

Yuuta looked directly into her eyes.

"Your love is nothing more than a beast’s love."

Erza stopped breathing for a moment.

The words struck somewhere far deeper than Yuuta probably realized. Her lips parted, but nothing came out immediately as she tried to understand whether she had heard him correctly.

"A... beast’s love?"

Yuuta nodded.

"Yes."

Erza’s eyes trembled.

"What does that even mean?"

Yuuta’s expression remained painfully serious.

"In simple words?"

He wiped another tear from his cheek.

"Your love for me is animalistic."

Erza visibly recoiled.

"Animalistic...?"

Her voice became quieter with every syllable.

Yuuta didn’t look away.

Erza’s fingers slowly curled against her chest. Of all the things Yuuta could have said to her, those words seemed to cut directly through the identity she carried with such pride.

"You’re calling me an animal?"

A tear rolled down her cheek.

Yuuta stared at her without hesitation.

"Yes."

The apartment fell silent.

Erza could only stare at the man standing before her, while Yuuta’s newly awakened aura continued drifting around his body. Neither of them moved, but something between them had changed with that single answer.

For the first time, Yuuta hadn’t merely rejected Erza’s decision.

He had rejected the very thing she had called love.

To Be Continued...

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