"Deliora… Ur…"
Lyon looked up at the gigantic ice statue, quietly murmuring the two names, his heart a mess of emotions.
Ultear, on the other hand, had come here before in her disguise as "Zalty". Back then she had only thought these blocks of ice were an eyesore.
But now, standing here in her real appearance, she felt an inexplicable unease, as if somewhere, somehow, a gentle gaze was resting on her with quiet concern.
"I heard a bit about Iced Shell from my guild master."
Kabe looked up at Deliora's ferocious face, frozen beneath the ice, and slowly spoke.
"Using Iced Shell did not mean death for Ur.
I believe that right now, she is watching her most beloved daughter and disciple."
Both of them trembled at the same time.
After a long silence Lyon braced his hands on the ground, then sat cross legged.
"I know… that Ur is still alive, but this way of living, for her, what difference is there from being locked in a cage forever?"
"Then go find a way. The world is huge, maybe somewhere there is a method to bring her back.
That is still better than letting you, you idiot, just thaw her out directly."
Kabe glanced back at this fool with a glare, then casually found a big rock and sat down. He looked at the dazed Ultear and beckoned her over.
Ultear looked up at Deliora sealed in ice, then down at Kabe, who was impatiently and insistently motioning for her to sit.
She hesitated for two seconds, then folded her legs neatly and sat, posture very ladylike.
"You just said you were going to tell me about the Magic Development Bureau.
Exactly how much do you…" she squinted at him "… know?"
"Relax. I was just about to get to that."
Kabe said, rummaging around in the pocket of his trousers. After a moment he pulled out a photograph of a dark skinned middle aged man and tossed it in front of the two of them.
"This guy… you know him, right."
Lyon picked up the photo and studied it carefully, but found the face completely unfamiliar.
So he turned to look at Ultear.
He saw her staring at the photograph, eyes burning, so full of hatred it looked like she could set the paper on fire.
"Brain. Director of the Magic Development Bureau."
Ultear squeezed the words out through clenched teeth.
How could she ever forget. It was this man who had subjected her to all sorts of experiments and torment when she was a child.
When she was deemed to have no more research value, he turned around and sold her to Hades, the guild master of Grimoire Heart.
If she had to list the people she hated most in this world, first would be the mother who personally handed her over to the Bureau.
Second would be the one who actually carried out those inhuman experiments on her: Brain.
"Yep. That bastard."
At the mention of Brain, Kabe's expression immediately cooled.
"Brain was once the director of the Magic Development Bureau, a subordinate institution of the Council.
On the surface, he conducted research into magic. In secret, he was doing every kind of inhuman experiment on children.
At the same time, when you were a child, your body could not withstand the immense magic power you inherited from Ur. You could have died at any time.
Ur, terrified of losing her child, somehow heard that the Magic Development Bureau might have a way to treat your 'condition'.
So she traveled a long way with little you in her arms and went to find Brain, hoping he could save her beloved daughter."
Here, Kabe paused, watching their reactions.
Ultear bit down hard on her lower lip, glaring at Kabe.
"What exactly are you trying to say? I know all that already.
That was when Ur abandoned me!"
Lyon, hearing the full story for the first time, was furious too, but the target of his anger was Ur, for naively handing her daughter to such scum.
However, when Ultear shouted at Kabe, his expression froze for a moment, and he suddenly snapped back:
"That is wrong. Ur never abandoned you. You were the one who died."
The moment he said it, even Lyon himself faltered.
Ultear let out a cold laugh.
"Right. I died. So who am I, standing in front of you now? A ghost called back from the dead?"
"Exactly. That is right."
Kabe nodded very seriously.
Both of them turned and stared at him like he had grown a second head. Ultear was so angry she almost jumped up.
"You are the ghost!"
"Ahem, I am not saying you died. I am saying, the core of this misunderstanding lies right there."
Kabe coughed twice into his fist to cover the awkwardness, then finally started telling them what really happened.
"The crux of it is this. After Ur gave you to Brain, she left full of hope, believing that in the near future you would recover.
But instead of seeing her healthy, lively daughter again, all she got was the cold, simple news from Brain that 'you died'.
He refused to even let her see your body, and directly threw a completely broken Ur, sobbing and unable to think, out of the Development Bureau.
Then he turned around and told you that Ur had abandoned you.
So the you who was being tortured inside the Bureau fell into complete despair and began to hate the mother who, in your eyes, had thrown you into hell."
By now, Lyon was completely enraged.
His eyes went bloodshot as he smashed his fist into the floor.
"That bastard… that bastard actually did something this vile!
Tell me he is still alive. I am going to tear him apart with my own hands!"
Compared to Lyon, who was screaming with rage and swearing to skin Brain alive, Ultear just looked like someone who had suddenly had all the strength drained from her.
She wrapped her arms around her head and muttered blankly:
"No… that is not how it was. I saw it with my own eyes.
That woman, that woman was happily smiling with her precious disciple in her arms.
What I saw with my own eyes cannot be wrong!"
"You, you saw me and Gray when we were kids?!
When? Why did you not show yourself? Ur thought about you every single night!"
Lyon's mind went blank. He could not make any sense of it.
Kabe, on the other hand, could not help complaining out loud:
"Seriously? You saw her and did not even think to shout?
If Ur saw her daughter, who she thought was dead, standing there alive, she would not just smile, she could cry herself stupid from happiness."
This had always been the part that annoyed Kabe the most in the original story.