Yuuta stared at the blue ink staining his bloodied palm before slowly looking toward Erza. His mind remained foggy, and he still couldn't remember what had happened during the missing part of their conversation, but as he stared at the broken pen in his hand, another memory suddenly surfaced.
Elena's innocent voice echoed inside his head.
"Papa is silly," she had declared confidently. "How will Papa know? Mama removed Papa's memory."
Those words hurt far more now than when Elena had first said them.
At the time, Yuuta hadn't wanted to believe her. Elena was still a child, and there had been countless explanations he could use to convince himself she had misunderstood something. More importantly, believing Elena meant accepting that Erza had deliberately entered his mind and removed something from him without his knowledge.
Now...
The evidence was sitting inside his palm.
A tear slowly slipped from the corner of Yuuta's eye.
"...It was true."
Erza froze.
