Karna was currently sitting on a bed with Ultear asleep on his lap. Cana was sitting up directly across from him as well. Her expression seemed to indicate that she was contemplating the current situation, so Karna decided not to speak a word until she finished thinking about it. But even then, he had no idea how to deal with all this new information.
'Am I that dense?' he asked himself, and someone else answered for him.
[Yeah, you dumbass.]
Karna decided to ignore that for now. He began thinking about his situation. He remembered the time when he had decided to do the demon quest all those years ago to save Ultear from misunderstanding her mother and to save Ur from being killed by Deliora. He had not done it to get rewards but because he felt it was tragic that a simple misunderstanding of a child would lead her to a life where she disregarded everything to accomplish her aim.
The canon Ultear can only be associated with Obito. But unlike Obito, who wanted an illusion where he could live in a world of his own choosing, Ultear wanted to change reality itself with her time magic. She had wanted to reverse time until she was a child with her mother. And when she accomplished it, she would be able to prevent being separated from her mother due to illness. Along with that, she would be able to atone for her sins by making sure it did not happen in that timeline. This, in turn, helped her justify that her cruelty did not matter at all.
Karna knew that kind of mentality was extremely dangerous. Even if a normal person had the idea of reversing time and disregarded everything they did, they would still hesitate to kill children or enslave them to work in towers or other areas. But in canon, it was shown that Ultear had crossed every single line to achieve her dream, and nothing could have stopped her from getting it. It was only after learning from Zeref that it was not possible that she finally let it go. And the moment she did, she lost her will to live and killed herself in front of Meredy as a form of atonement of her own. It was only after learning that Meredy would not live without her that she finally decided to live while atoning for her sins.
Karna looked at Ultear, who was sleeping right now. He looked closely at the small cracks that now covered her body. They were not numerous—just a total of five. Two straight lines started from her forehead, ran through her right eye, and reached her collarbone. One was on her left arm, starting from her fist and reaching her elbow. The remaining two were on her stomach.
Karna was able to find out why these marks appeared by checking her condition. It seemed that Frostborn's lacrima did not escape the Anima and had been sucked in with the other lacrima. When everything was turned back to normal and the news about him being missing was found out, Ultear completely broke down. At that time, Frostborn, who had managed to turn back into a circular lacrima form, was rolling through every part of the castle.
When he found the broken-down Ultear and informed her that he had been brought for her by Karna, she did not hesitate and performed the surgery with her own two hands without informing anyone. Thankfully, her potential was so high that she was able to take in the entire power of the strongest dragon in the ancient world without killing herself.
Although she did suffer for the stupid decision of directly putting the lacrima inside her without any supervision from the medics who could have helped her, during the few seconds of assimilation, those cracks appeared on her body—a sign that her body was about to explode due to the influx of draconic energy. But she somehow managed to combine her breathing technique with it at the last moment, creating an entirely different level of power not seen before.
Frost Chrono Dragonslayer. Combined with her time and ice magic, her constructs could now be created within nanoseconds, and even sending out auras and attacks could be done instantly. Even Karna needed to be careful if he faced her in battle. Her attack speed had clearly surpassed his by a lot.
Her physical wounds could not be healed, but there would be no future complications. What worried him, however, was the infatuation she had with him. Unlike in canon, where her aim was reversing time, this time her obsession was her love for him. He worried about what would happen when he rejected her later, after she woke up.
Karna had been in love with Cana since he was a teenager. He was still in love with her and intended to be in love with her in the future as well. So he would not be able to hurt Cana in any way by accepting the emotions Ultear had for him.
As he was thinking about this, Cana finally spoke up.
"I'm leaving the choice to you."
"What?" Karna broke out of his thoughts as he heard Cana say it.
"I mean that as long as you want it, I can agree to you having a relationship with Ultear," Cana said in the same tone. She didn't seem angry. Her voice and eyes seemed calm. Karna could see that she was not upset, not lying, and not holding back her emotions either. After so many years together, Karna could easily see that Cana was serious about this.
"But I—" Karna was about to speak up but was stopped by Cana, who raised her hand.
"I know. I have been with you since I was a child. I know the things in your mind right now. I also know that you are planning on rejecting her for me. But I want you to think about this right now," Cana said as she thought about everything that had happened till now.
A/N – Hope you like it.