Sheila gently lowered the sleeping girl onto one of the three main beds in the clinic room, choosing the one closest to Gajeel. She adjusted the covers with care, making sure Juvia was settled, before trailing the back of her fingers softly across the young girl's cheek in a tender, silent gesture.
Her gaze dimmed with a heavy sadness as she looked down at Juvia's peaceful face.
'I never realized how much pent-up anger and hostility Juvia was holding back inside her,' Sheila thought, her heart aching for the girl. 'I suppose, in the end... I couldn't seal away the darkness in her heart.'
She straightened her posture, standing over Juvia's unconscious form.
"This experience has taught me a very valuable lesson," Sheila murmured softly into the quiet clinic. "Things like anger and hatred... they can never truly disappear. But if you learn to accept that part of yourself... you can find peace. I tried to give Juvia a 'second life.' I tried to fill the empty void her parents left behind."
It wasn't that Sheila had ever intended to replace Juvia's parents. But in her own way, she had wanted to become a parental figure.
A safe harbor and a guardian Juvia could lean on. That desire was one of the core reasons she had taken the girl in. Yet, Sheila realized now that no amount of compassion could magically erase the deep-seated resentment Juvia carried.
Pain didn't simply go away with time; without an outlet, it only built up, layer upon layer, until the levy broke.
Sheila turned away from the bed, her expression shifting. The sadness in her eyes hardened into a serious, solemn, and heavy resolve.
She walked across the clinic and opened the door to her personal quarters. Inside, the familiar room greeted her—her massive bed sitting in the center, where Albion now lay unconscious and still.
She closed the door quietly behind her, staring at the young boy.
"Back in the corridor... it was only for a split second," Sheila said aloud to the empty room. "I felt this dark, almost malevolent presence radiating from him. At the time, I didn't think much of it. But after what happened with Juvia... perhaps these two are far more similar than I thought. Far more similar than they even realize."
She crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the mattress beside him.
"I don't know much about you, Albion," Sheila confessed softly, her eyes searching his face. "And honestly, it isn't my place to pry or interfere. I've only met you recently. But at the same time... it is second nature for me—for a guardian of children—to want to help a child who is clearly suffering."
Sheila reached out, gently pressing two fingers against Albion's forehead.
In an instant, her magical aura flared to life. Pure, luminous white currents of Mahō manifested around her, moving like a perfectly controlled flow.
Rather than flickering like violent flames, the aura took the shape of long, flowing ribbons and translucent streams of wind that coiled around her body in graceful, effortless arcs. It circulated continuously like an invisible breeze made visible by pure magic, strands of brilliant white energy drifting upward past her shoulders, spiraling around her arms, and sweeping outward before curling softly back toward her.
She closed her eyes, speaking in a low, unwavering voice.
"I made a promise to Juvia... and now, I am making a promise to you. I may not have known you as long as I've known her, but that changes nothing."
Sudden, painful flashes echoed in the back of Sheila's mind, the smiling, innocent faces of children from her past, before they were cruelly burned away in flames she couldn't stop.
Her fingers tightened slightly against Albion's temple as she swallowed the old grief.
"I made a mistake long ago," Sheila whispered, her conviction. "A mistake I will spend the rest of my years atoning for. I promise you, Albion... I am going to save you. Because if you are so stubbornly focused on saving everyone else... then who in the world is going to make sure that you come back okay?"
As the last word left her lips, her white Mahō surged, and a blinding, brilliant light illuminated the entire room.