Chapter 2692: Never Again

"It's not your fault, you know," Aina's voice suddenly called out as she plopped by Leonel's side. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder with a smile, pulling his hand into a sandwich between her palms.

She could feel Leonel's thoughts more clearly now than ever before. She knew that he was wrestling with himself, a battle between the man he naturally was and the man he wanted to be.

She could still remember that scowl of rage Leonel had on his face when he sent her to deliver that letter back in the Three Finger Cult. She could feel that he was suppressing what he wanted to do with what he thought the smartest choice was.

When there were no other variables, Leonel felt that he could take all the risks in the world and still come out on top. But when it was a matter of the safety of everyone around him...

He had no ability to guarantee that.

If he were to describe it cruelly, there were added variables that he couldn't account for. Trying to make sure that everything was dialed in on his part was difficult enough without also having to deal with an array of people that wouldn't act predictably.

That was how Leonel had always seen it. Or, rather, it was the way he had tried to pretend as though he didn't see it, while knowing full well that this was how his mind worked.

It seemed though... that even now his future self, though having disappeared, was still influencing him.

Even before he changed the path of his Dream Force, the back of his mind was still churning with ways of changing himself, of destroying what seemed to be an inevitable future and swapping it for something better.

What he had done to Aina had felt like that first step. It made him greatly uncomfortable, and it also struck right at his pride, but he still forced himself to do it nonetheless.

And now there was the matter with Anastasia... but that was still just one part of it all.

Losing on purpose? Making his wife act like an incompetent fool before so many people? Opening her up to ridicule and debasement at the hands of a conniving bastard like Somnus?

These were all things that filled him with more rage than he knew what to do with, things that made him want to snap the current foundation of his Sovereignty and go back to what felt good, what could soothe his ego and temper his fury.

Each one of these things was another layer of discomfort, and Anastasia's tears seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

His wife would never complain. She never cared about the opinions of others. The only reason she had ever hidden her face to begin with in the Royal Blue Academy was to lie low and avoid trouble. That was only made obvious by the fact that not only did she not choose to use her original face, but she also got rid of it soon after the Metamorphosis began.

The only person's opinion she cared about now was her husband's. Even if the world was collapsing around them, so long as the two of them were happy, she would be content. She didn't care about anything else.

It was only when the opinions of others began to encroach on her husband did she react like a cat whose tail had been stomped.

When those people talked about her like she was a flower in a vase, that the only reason she might be worthy of her husband was because of her looks, and how they even tried to steal her husband away from her with the use of honeytraps...

That truly filled her with fury.

As for a little embarrassment? Why would she care about that? It hardly moved the scale for her.

Of course, she didn't like being sent to pretend to date another man. She had made as much clear to Leonel. But even then, she had only planned to be "angry" for a small while because she understood the necessity of it all. If not for Anastasia, she would have let it go after a few minutes of coaxing.

But to Leonel, even those few minutes of dislike were too much.

"It is..." Leonel said softly after a long while. "... It is my fault. I'll find another way in the future. The universe has an infinite number of variations and changes. Existence would have whatever number that is multiplied by another infinity for the number of worlds that exist. I don't believe that I can't figure out just one that doesn't require-"

"Alright, alright, mister brains," Aina giggled and squeezed his hand between hers more tightly. "We can carry this burden together."

Leonel looked down at Aina. His heart wanted to say yes, but...

No, that wasn't true at all. It was his heart that wanted to say no. He didn't like it. He didn't want to have to share the burden.

Part of it was his ego again, and the other part was not wanting to put them through this.

Wasn't it precisely sharing the burden that had ended up with Anastasia in tears?

Aina smiled. It was a soft smile, one filled with meaning and double understandings.

"Anastasia is just a child, Leonel," she said in a gentle voice. "Although she's lived for much longer than we have, her mental state is still naive and immature. We have to protect her, but that doesn't mean you also have to protect me. We are stronger together."

Leonel fell into silence and Aina smiled a bit bitterly. She knew that her husband could be stubborn... and the problem was that anything she could say, he had probably thought of a million different ways in a few seconds.

But she wanted him to hear her nonetheless.

Eventually, Leonel smiled as well, pulling his wife into an embrace.

"You don't have to worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid. But... I'll also never give those people a chance to ever say anything bad about you again."