(Narrator POV)
Yuuta Flashback Orphanage.
"Catch him! Don't let the demon escape!"
The shouts tore through the dim corridor, followed by the thunder of feet slapping against stone. A cluster of boys in white robes surged forward, their faces flushed with cruel excitement as they gave chase. At their head, one clutched a glass bottle of water as though it were a sacred weapon.
"There! Over there! Catch Satan!"
Yuuta skidded to a halt at the dead end. Cold stone pressed against his palms as he turned, cornered, his chest rising and falling in panicked bursts. The dim lamplight caught his eyes, turning their natural crimson glow into something that shimmered like blood beneath the moon.
The boys grinned, their cruelty made bold by numbers. They puffed their chests out, mimicking the voices of priests they had seen in sermons. Their faces twisted into masks of borrowed righteousness.
One boy uncorked the bottle and raised it high.
"Be gone, demon!" he declared, before flinging the water in Yuuta's face.
The liquid splattered against his skin and shirt. It was only water. No sting, no burn—yet the cold sank deeper than any blade, piercing his heart.
"I'm not Satan!" Yuuta's small voice cracked as he shouted. "I'm Yuuta… Yuuta Kounari!"
His cry echoed in the narrow hall.
"Liar!" a boy snapped back. "If you were human, why do your eyes glow when you cry?"
Yuuta shook his head frantically, tears spilling faster, making the glow in his crimson pupils seem brighter. "I… I don't know!"
Another boy sneered. "You're Satan! You lost your battle against God long ago. Why are you still walking the earth?"
Yuuta pressed his hands to his chest, shaking as though trying to hold himself together.
"I'm Yuuta," he wept again, choking on his own sobs. "I'm not Satan… I'm Yuuta…"
But their eyes saw nothing but a monster. Hatred had blinded them, turning his very name into something meaningless.
To them, those crimson eyes were enough—he was no boy, only a monster trapped in a child's body.
And what stung most was not their jeering. It was the silence.
At the far end of the corridor, a pair of sisters passed by. They saw him cornered, saw the water dripping from his chin, saw the boys circling like hunters around prey. But their gazes slid away, cold and dismissive. One even laughed, as though it were theater. Another lingered, her hands twitching with the desire to help, but fear of a curse held her back.
Yuuta's small frame trembled. A single thought pressed like a knife into his heart:
"Everyone hates me… because of my eyes."
The words slipped from Yuuta's lips like a confession, so faint that the walls themselves seemed to absorb them.
Late that Night had settled heavy over the orphanage. The chapel's candles had long burned down to stubs, leaving only the smell of wax and ash. Sister Mary had been finishing her last duties when a pale-faced nun whispered to her what had happened. She didn't even pause to take off her apron—her sandals struck the stone floor as she ran through the corridor, the echoes of her footsteps chasing her like ghosts.
She reached Yuuta's room and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked in protest.
The lamplight inside was weak and sickly. Yuuta sat on the wooden floor, small and hunched, his back turned to her as if trying to melt into the wall. His shoulders trembled with each soundless sob.
"Yuuta…" Sister Mary called, her voice soft and careful, like one might speak to a frightened bird.
No answer. Only a low, wet sound—the quiet hitch of his breath—filled the room.
Then she saw it: a glint of metal at his side. A fork, lying in a small pool of fresh red Blood. Her stomach tightened.
"Yuuta!"
She rushed forward, skirts whispering against the floor, and knelt hard enough that the wood bit into her knees. She reached for him, her hands shaking, and gently turned him toward her.
The sight stole the air from her lungs.
His crimson eyes—those cursed eyes everyone whispered about—were bleeding. Thin streams ran down his pale cheeks, mingling with his tears until blood and grief were indistinguishable. In the wavering lamplight she could see it clearly now: four jagged, self-inflicted marks encircling each pupil where he had tried, in desperation, to tear them out by force.
"Yuuta…" Her voice cracked, halfway between a whisper and a cry. "Why? Why did you do this again?"
Her hands framed his small face, careful but firm, as though he might shatter. Tears pricked at her own eyes. "I told you—no, I begged you—not to do this…"
Yuuta's voice trembled, choked with sobs. "Those… those are Satan's eyes… Yuuta doesn't want them."
"Why would you think that?" Sister Mary asked gently, brushing the damp hair from his forehead.
"I… I thought," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "if I become… like you… blind… then everyone will treat Yuuta… better."
Sister Mary's heart clenched. He didn't know. He thought she was respected because she was blind, while he—born with crimson eyes—was hated, called a demon, an outcast. In his small, desperate mind, removing his own eyes might free him from the cruelty, might let him finally escape the endless bullying.
She held him close in the dim room, the warmth of his small, trembling body pressed against her. The blood on his cheeks was warm against her palms, a painful reminder of the loneliness and fear that had driven him to this.
It was not the first time. There had been darker nights, when he had pressed forks, knife, stones, even sticks against those cursed eyes, desperate to rip them out—desperate to blind himself so that, maybe, others would stop looking at him as if he weren't human.
Every time, it had been Sister Mary who found him. Her hands—warm but trembling—had gently taken the sharp objects from his grasp. Night after night, she healed his eyes, restoring his vision, even as the effort left her weak and drained.
She would pull him close into her arms, her voice soft and steady, weaving gentle stories of heroes and kind souls who overcame darkness. Over and over, she whispered the same promise: that one day, he would meet someone who would love him exactly as he was.
And for a while, her words had carried him.
But morning always came. And with it, the same cruel routine—whispers that cut like knives, laughter that mocked his very existence, and rituals disguised as holiness, each one reminding him that he was different, unwanted, cursed.
Day after day, night after night, Yuuta endured it alone. If he had been older, perhaps he might have given up entirely—but he was still a child, too small and too fragile to fight fate itself. So he turned on the one thing that marked him, that had made him an outcast: his own eyes. Time and again, he had tried to destroy them, believing that if he were blind, perhaps the world would finally leave him alone. But the pain was unbearable, and each attempt ended in failure. Slowly, the despair gnawed at him, threatening to swallow the fragile hope he had left.
And yet… fate had not finished with him.
One night, Yuuta huddled in the corner of his small bedroom, his back pressed to the wall as though it could protect him from the world. In his trembling hands, he held not a fork or a knife this time, but a single piece of paper. His fingers clutched it like a lifeline, the fragile paper heavier than any weapon he had ever wielded.
On it, words were written—someone's wish. A wish so simple, yet so powerful, that it promised to change everything. To give him a reason to live. To give him hope again, to remind him that life could be more than pain.
Sister Mary rushed down the corridor once more. Each time she had entered this room before, she had found him with sharp objects in his hands, or crying so hard she feared he might shatter. But tonight… the room was quiet. Too quiet. The silence pressed down like a weight, unnatural and heavy, so still it made the nuns outside hesitate.
Was the room empty? Or… had something terrible finally happened?
Sister Mary's heart raced as she approached the door, every step measured against the fear that this time, she might be too late.
But no—she was wrong. Yuuta wasn't holding a knife or fork this time. He sat on the bed, clutching a piece of paper, tears streaking down his pale cheeks.
"Sister Mary…" he whispered, voice trembling. "Are you… going to leave someday?"
Sister Mary gently sat beside him on the bed, her hand brushing against his trembling shoulder. "Why would you say that, little Yuuta?" she asked softly, relief flooding her heart as she saw he was safe.
Yuuta looked down at the paper in his hands. It was a wish—a short prayer for him, written by Sister Mary herself. And in careful, neat letters, it plainly stated what he had feared: after Yuuta got married, she would leave this place forever.
The truth struck him like ice. He had always known that marriage meant separation; the Bible was clear that a man would leave his home and his mother, and a woman would leave her family to create a new home. Yuuta had only the faintest understanding of what that meant, but now the idea loomed over him like a shadow. Even the person who had never abandoned him—Sister Mary—would one day leave.
Tears welled up again, his small hands clutching the paper as if it were the only lifeline left. Sister Mary smiled gently, pulling him close and letting him rest his head in her lap. The motion was soothing, meant to ease the turmoil twisting inside him.
"Yuuta… are you afraid of… marriage?" she asked softly, her fingers stroking his hair.
He buried his face deeper into her lap. "Yes," he whispered, his voice muffled by her robes. "I'm… afraid."
Sister Mary let out a soft laugh, though her heart ached at his words. "Oh, Yuuta… marriage is something to make you happy, not afraid."
"But I'll lose you if I marry," he insisted.
"Yuuta…" she began, but he interrupted, clinging tighter.
"Then marry me! If you marry me, you'll never leave me Right.!"
Her laughter broke softly in the quiet room. He didn't understand what marriage meant—he only feared losing the one person who had never abandoned him. "Oh, Yuuta," she said, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead, "I'm far too old to marry you."
He tugged at her robe, his eyes desperate. "Everyone hates Yuuta. No one loves me. Only you… only you never hate me. Why is it wrong to marry you?"
She drew him into her arms again, speaking softly against his hair. "It's not true, little Yuuta. Someone out there will love you as much as you deserve. Someone who will see you—not just your eyes, not just the names they call you. Someone who will treat you like her own, who will carry your burdens with you. She will be your wife."
Yuuta's small, shaking voice held a flicker of hope. "Really? Will that person… love Yuuta?"
"Yes," Sister Mary whispered. "She will love you."
He sniffled, rubbing his eyes with his fists. "Lies… Everyone hates my eyes. They say I'm Satan. No one will love me. You're lying…"
"I'm not lying, little Yuuta," she said softly, her thumb brushing away another tear. "There will be someone who loves your eyes, who treasures them as if they were her own. She will be your wife. She will carry your burdens with you."
His voice trembled with hope now. "Really? She will truly love Yuuta?"
"Yes," Sister Mary said firmly. "She will love you as you my little brave Yuuta."
He hiccuped and nodded, as though making a promise to himself. "Then Yuuta promises you… Yuuta will never make her cry."
"That's my boy," she said, smiling faintly through her own sadness. "Promise me, Yuuta."
"I promise, Sister Mary…Yuuta will never make her cry."
Her hand stayed on his head, gentle and warm, as he slept in her lap. They stayed like that for a long time—his small body trembling slightly against her, her warmth surrounding him like a protective shield—until finally, his breathing evened out, and the quiet of the night wrapped around them.
When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer the little, frightened boy of the orphanage. He was an adult now. And though he still rested in someone's lap, it was no longer Sister Mary's—it was his wife, Erza Konuari. She brushed his hair softly, the same gentle way Sister Mary had once done, her touch filled with care and love.
Yuuta looked up at her, seeing the worry in her eyes, the same kind of worry that had comforted him all those lonely nights.
A small, grateful smile appeared on his face. "You were right, Sister Mary," he whispered softly. "My wife… she does love me. She carries my burdens with me, I'm not alone anymore."
A single tear rolled down his cheek as memories of long ago came rushing back—the promise he had whispered to Sister Mary, so soft that even from a distance she could hear it, though it was too quiet for anyone else to notice.
Even now, Erza didn't realize that Yuuta had woken from sleep. He whispered again, barely audible, his voice trembling with gratitude and determination, "Thank you Sister Mary… I will never make her cry again."
"Never."
To be continue...