The main treatment room was quiet, save for the steady, soft breathing of Gajeel resting on the far bed beneath Sheila's suit jacket.
Sheila sat on the edge of the adjacent treatment bed, directly across from Juvia. She had abandoned her sharp, tailored suit for something considerably less formal. A plain, loose white t-shirt hung comfortably from her silhouette, paired with dark, unpressed trousers. Her long, dark hair fell loose around her shoulders, stripped of its usual hairpins.
Without her gloves, jacket, necktie, or high heels, she looked noticeably less like Phantom Lord's cold, formidable doctor and more like a tired woman enjoying a rare, quiet moment off duty.
Sheila drew a slow, deliberate breath from her cigarette, letting a gray cloud of smoke drift upward toward the dark ceiling beams. Her eyes settled on the girl across from her.
"Are you going to explain what happened? Or are we simply going to sit here in silence?"
Juvia sat on her own mattress, her small knees pulled tight against her chest. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. At Sheila's words, Juvia looked up slightly. Her clear azure eyes held a heavy, solemn gloom.
"Are you angry with me?" Juvia asked softly.
Sheila didn't answer right away. She took another quiet drag, ash glowing faintly in the dim light, before shaking her head once.
"No, I am not angry with you, Juvia. I am concerned."
A long, heavy pause stretched between them, the kind of quiet that usually filled the space around Sheila, a woman whose social skills were stripped of unnecessary chatter.
She tapped the ash off her cigarette into a small tray on the bedside table.
"Explain what's been happening. I am not merely referring to what transpired with Gajeel just now. Back in the guildhall, you mentioned a fight between the two of you in the corridor. Why did that fight begin?"
Sheila paused, her dull eyes looking over Juvia's face quietly.
"You are a mature child," she continued. "You are calm. You think before you act. I can't even imagine you losing your composure without a reason. You are polite, educated in magic, and possess adequate social skills—unlike myself. I cannot imagine why you would initiate a fight with anyone. Let alone another child."
Sheila exhaled a thin stream of smoke away from the beds.
"I cannot help you if you refuse to let me."
Juvia remained silent for several minutes, staring down at the floor, dangling over the edge of the sheet. Slowly, she let her feet drop to the ground.
"In the guildhall... I told you we fought," Juvia began, her voice soft and plain."I didn't explain why."
She clutched her small gray plush seal tightly against her side.
"At first... it was self-defense. I spoke to Gajeel. I told him he looked sad and pathetic coming out of the library. He took offense. He attacked me."
Juvia looked Sheila straight in the eye, her expression clear and unblinking.
"I apologized immediately. I didn't mean to insult him. I was simply stating what I observed. When I first joined the guild, he was always fighting. But when I saw him earlier, he looked gloomy. He refused to accept my apology and swung at me. So I defended myself."
She took a short breath, her fingers tightening around the plush seal.
"It started as self-defense. But after a few exchanges... I realized I could use the fight to gain information about the Ebonveil clan."
Sheila's hand froze mid-air. The trail of cigarette smoke halted.
"The Ebonveil clan?" Sheila repeated softly. "Are you referring to that assassin clan, the ancient clan of shinobi responsible for destroying your Village two years ago?"
Juvia gave a single, quiet nod. "Yes."
Sheila leaned back against the headboard of the bed, letting out a long, heavy exhale toward the ceiling.
"...I see."
"At first, I thought Gajeel might know something about them," Juvia continued."He didn't even know what a shinobi was. That didn't surprise me. The Ebonveil clan is secretive, finding information about them is rare."
She paused, her eyes darkening slightly.
"But during our fight... Gajeel said something else. He revealed that he knows someone with the surname Ebonveil, someone connected to that clan is currently inside Phantom Lord."
Sheila's eyes narrowed with sharp intensity. "Are you certain of this?"
Juvia gave a tiny shrug. "Gajeel didn't give me a name. But at minimum, someone tied to the Ebonveil operates inside this guild. I tried to make him speak. I told him it was logical to yield the name, since he didn't even know who or what the Ebonveil clan was. But he refused. He said he would protect the person who held out a hand to him, no matter what. That is why the fight escalated into the main hall."
Silence returned to the clinic room, thick and suffocating.
Sheila watched the young girl carefully. "...Are you alright, Juvia?"
Juvia looked away toward the far wall. "I'm fine."
Sheila didn't break her gaze. "Do you miss your family?"
Juvia's shoulders tensed for a second before relaxing back into stillness. She didn't look at Sheila when she answered.
"I'm used to being alone. It's been well over a year. It isn't a big deal anymore. All that matters right now is finding the Ebonveil member in this guild."
A cold, sharp edge crept into Juvia's quiet voice—a trace of dark, simmering hatred beneath her childish appearance.
"I have two goals," Juvia said simply. "First... to eradicate the Ebonveil clan. To make them regret what they did to my village. To my parents. To my baby sister. Second... to become strong enough so I can protect the people I care about. So I never have to watch anyone die again."
Sheila sat in silence for a long moment. Then, with deliberate slowness, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and looking straight into Juvia's eyes. Her own eyes were completely serious.
"So you are fine. That is what you tell yourself, Juvia? What a load of bullshit."
Juvia blinked, her posture freezing. It was the first time she had ever heard Sheila use a curse word. Sheila didn't raise her voice. She simply kept her gaze locked onto the child, her words dropping like heavy iron weights onto the dark wood floor.
"You may sit there and tell me that you are used to isolation. You may lie to me as much as you wish, but you cannot lie to yourself. The fact that you dwell on this constantly—the fact that you harbor such immense hatred toward the Ebonveil—is proof that you are not fine."
Juvia's eyes widened slightly, her lips parting, but no sound came out.
"What happened in your village is a tragedy no child should ever experience," Sheila said quietly. "I understand better than most how deeply isolation can scar a person."
She took a quiet drag from her cigarette, looking down at her own bare, burn-marked knuckles.
"Years ago," Sheila began. "Before you, Gajeel, or any of the children in this guild were born, my parents sold me to Phantom Lord."
Juvia's breath hitched.
"When I was very young, I barely retained any memories of my life prior to that day. I recall the touch of my mother, the scent of my father, and very little else. One day, we walked down a stone path out of our hometown, and they handed me over to Master Jose in exchange for jewels."
Sheila paused, looking across at Juvia.
"In the corridor earlier today, I said that I was an orphan. That was a lie. I am not an orphan. I was simply an unwanted child."
"Unwanted...?" Juvia whispered.
"Yes," Sheila replied plainly. "My birth name was not Sheila. It was... Nulla."
Juvia's eyes widened in quiet shock.
"Nulla," Sheila repeated, letting the old name linger for a moment before discarding it. "That was the identity given to me by people who viewed me as a commodity to be sold."
Sheila's expression remained composed, her gaze unwavering.
"The child who entered this guild as someone's daughter gradually ceased to exist. I constructed 'Sheila' to replace her. I refused to allow my identity to be defined by people who discarded me. I rebuilt myself from the ground up. 'Nulla' belongs to a weak, abandoned child who died years ago. 'Sheila' is the identity that survived."
She took one final pull from her cigarette, extinguishing the glowing amber tip against the small tray on the table.
"Do you remember when we first met, Juvia?" Sheila asked softly. "You were sitting against a stone wall in the pouring rain. You looked as though you were struggling to find a reason to continue living."
Juvia remained still, listening intently.
"I did not encounter you by coincidence; I was returning from a job. I noticed an unnatural, persistent downpour of rain. It was driven by your uncontrolled magical energy and your emotions, though you were likely unaware of it at the time."
Sheila looked at her bare hands, then back to Juvia.
"Using magic Perception, I tracked your magic signature. It was faint, exhausted, and bleeding Ethernano into the sky, but it was there. I found you, brought you here, and took responsibility for you. It was not a chance. You are not a mistake. And you are not alone."
Sheila leaned in slightly, her eyes narrowing with quiet, absolute intensity.
"So when you walk around claiming that you are alone—when you act as though you have no one—you insult the bond we have built," Sheila said quietly, her voice carrying a rare, warmth beneath its cold edge. "And that makes you just as foolish as the monsters who took your home."