The air in the main clinic room grew cold, thick with the heavy scent of smoke and raw, unsaid grief.
Juvia sat frozen on the edge of the clinic bed. Her face twisted, a crude, unnatural smile forming on her lips that didn't reach her eyes. Her clear azure eyes held no light, only a hollow, fractured darkness.
"Foolishness...?" Juvia repeated, her voice trembling, rising into a hysterical, jagged pitch. "What are you talking about? Are you kidding me right now? They are the ones who made me like this in the first place! Don't you see all the suffering? All the pain? All the sadness, the guilt, the regret?!"
As the words tore from her throat, her mind dragged her back to the day she lost everything.
She remembered the motionless bodies sprawled across the ground, the collapse of Baywater Village, and the suffocating, metallic stench hanging in the air. The sharp, sickening smell of death.
"It only happened to me!" Juvia cried out, her small frame shaking violently. "Are you saying I should have just given up back then? That I shouldn't have kept moving forward? That I'm not alone?! But I am alone. Nobody else made it out alive besides me!"
Her thoughts flashed to her father's face—his words ringing in her ears that he said so long ago. She had made one promise to him. Just one. She had sworn to protect her baby sister. She had been given one real responsibility in her short life, and she had failed Lilia completely.
Juvia's hands flew to her side, frantically clutching her soft plush seal, the last memory of her sister, squeezing it so tightly her fingers turned white. Her expression contorted into a painful grimace, an agonizing mixture of guilt, grief, and raw frustration.
"Who else could have done it, huh?!" She screamed, tears finally spilling over her eyelids and tracing hot lines down her cheeks. "If I stayed there with her, I would have just died! Either way, I was left with a terrible, horrible fate! Who else could have gone through such a tragedy?! Who else could have survived all that pain and kept living—kept moving forward?! No one else could have done it! Are you seriously trying to tell me that what I did was foolish?!"
She choked on a sob, her chest heaving violently as the floodgates broke completely.
"I hate myself!" she sobbed out, the words breaking her composure into pieces. "I'm a fraud! I'm a mess that can't even live with myself right now! I wish I had died back then with my family! I wish I could just wake up and all of this would be one big, terrible nightmare! But no matter how many times I wish for it... it doesn't happen!"
Juvia slipped off the edge of the tall treatment bed, her knees giving out completely as she hit the hardwood floor with a heavy, ungraceful thud.
The plush seal tumbled from her grasp, landing directly on the floor in front of her. Tears streamed down Juvia's face in heavy drops, falling straight onto the soft gray fabric of the seal.
She buried her face near the floor, weeping loudly, her small body wracked with harsh, ragged gasps.
"There's no one else who could have done it! Do you know what it was like to lose everything?! Of course you don't! Your parents never even cared about you! But I'm not like you! I had a family. I had friends. I had a responsibility, and all of it was ripped away because of them! That's why I have to destroy them! They took everything from me—everything I ever knew!"
She forced her head up, staring through blurred, tear-soaked eyes directly at Sheila.
"Before you found me, I was completely alone."Juvia choked out. "I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again. I had no reason for living. I wanted all of it just to end... I wanted all of it to go away. I wanted everyone to go away... while at the same time, I sat there so desperate for someone to reach out a hand for me! But no one did! Everyone just walked past me! They gave me a sorry glance, but not a single person stopped to ask, 'Hey, are you okay?' No one!"
She pounded her small fists against the floorboards—once, twice, again and again—the harsh impacts bruising her delicate skin, turning her knuckles an angry, throbbing red.
"I had no reason to live! I had no desire to live!" she screamed. "I had one responsibility, and I failed completely! I'm a fraud! I'm a failure as an older sister! It's incredible that I've even lived until now! I just wanted it all to stop... I wanted it all to go away!"
Juvia sniffled hard, her chest hitching as she pressed a trembling, bruised hand over her heart.
"Calling me mature... calling me strong... calling me level-headed... What is wrong with you people? What is wrong with Phantom Lord?! What is wrong with this world?! Stop lying to me!"
A hollow, bitter, cruel smile cut across her tear-stained face.
"Someone like that can't be me," Juvia whispered harshly. "I know better than anyone. I know how disgusting, how useless, and how much of a failure I am and always will be. This is a burden I have to carry—the job I had, but failed to do! Don't you see?! There is nothing inside me at all! There isn't a single good thing about me!"
She glared up at Sheila with wild, agonizing eyes.
"What's the point of even telling you this? You could never understand! You didn't have a family! Your parents didn't die right in front of you! If I had my Skywater Magic back then—if I had awakened it earlier—then maybe I could have done something! But I was too late!"
Juvia stared at the tall S-Class mage, her breath coming in frantic, desperate gasps.
"Answer me, Sheila—or whoever you are!" She cried out. "Did you become an S-Class wizard because you were already Sheila? Or did becoming an S-Class wizard make you into Sheila? If I had the power you have, then maybe I could have saved them! Maybe I could have changed my fate!"
Her voice completely gave out. Juvia collapsed face-first onto the cold wood floor, sobbing hysterically into her arms, her body shivering as her quiet, miserable sniffles filled the heavy silence.
Minutes stretched on in stillness. The raw, wild outburst hung in the air like heavy smoke.
Slowly, as the frantic rush of adrenaline and rage began to wash out of her, Juvia realized what she had said.
The harsh, cruel words she had thrown at the woman who had taken her in. The wild, unfair lashes born purely from her own bleeding agony.
Trembling, she lifted her head slightly from the floor, her eyes swollen and red, looking up at Sheila's silent figure.
"I'm... I'm sorry," Juvia muttered, her voice tiny, hoarse, and broken. "I don't know why I said that... I'm sorry, Sheila..."
Before she could finish her apology, a pair of warm, firm arms wrapped completely around her small frame. Sheila dropped to her knees on the floor, pulling Juvia tightly against her chest and pressing the little girl's head deep into the soft fabric of her t-shirt and shoulder.
When Sheila spoke, her voice held an emotion Juvia had never heard from her before, a crack in her usual cold, impenetrable armor, heavy with deep, raw remorse.
"I'm sorry," Sheila whispered into Juvia's hair. "I should have realized this sooner. I should have known."
Sheila's arms tightened, pulling the small, shaking child closer.
"You were carrying this guilt... this crushing weight... this entire time. No wonder it all came out like this. There is nothing to be ashamed of, Juvia. There is nothing to apologize for. I am the one who is sorry. I failed you as your guardian. You are not the one who should be apologizing—it should be me."
Tears dripped silently from Sheila's eyes into Juvia's midnight-blue hair.
"I should have noticed this from the very beginning," Sheila murmured softly. "I should have been there for you even before I met you. I should have been at Baywater Village before that attack ever happened, even if I didn't know you yet. That burden isn't yours to carry, Juvia. It's mine."
Sheila leaned back just enough to hold Juvia's face, looking straight into her swollen, tear-filled eyes with absolute, unyielding conviction.
"I swear to you... I swear that I will never, ever let you go."
Juvia buried her face back into Sheila's shoulder, her small hands clutching the back of Sheila's shirt as hard as she could.
"Promise me..." Juvia sobbed into the fabric, her voice small and desperate. "Promise me..."
Sheila nodded, resting her chin against the top of Juvia's head.
"I will. I promise that I will never, ever let you go."
Juvia completely gave in, her body relaxing into Sheila's hold as she wept loudly into the quiet clinic room, letting out months of trapped grief, guilt, and terror.
"Thank you, Sheila..." Juvia cried out softly through her tears. "Thank you for loving me..."
Sheila simply held her tightly, rocking the small girl gently in the quiet room, allowing her to cry in her arms for as long as she needed.