The withered, wrinkled, and sallow hand gripping the scepter, the old man, far removed from the shadow of a fifth-stage sorcerer, spoke with utmost seriousness.
"You must promise , never to give up on pursuing that future, the possibilities you long for, the ideals you firmly believe in."
In this grey world, Eileen's figure seed to solidify, as if truly coming to life before Ravenna's eyes, uttering these words.
His words should have imbued Ravenna with a sense of empowernt, reigniting her convictions amidst her mories.
Yet, Ravenna could only stare blankly at her grandfather's figure, at the aged face so vivid in her mory, unable to stir any emotion within her.
For if a single sentence could rally her spirits… what then would her ideals amount to?
Without understanding the reasons, without knowing how to achieve them, but simply because of the mory of the phrase "you must never give up to your ideals," if that alone could shatter all the confusion and pain she had experienced recently, wouldn't that prove... that her ideals were nothing more than the words themselves?
Fortunately.
Ravenna even felt relief that she hadn't regained her confidence through Eileen's words. She was grateful that her convictions did not stem from a sentence heard at the age of six.
Instead, they were the culmination of her life's experiences over more than a decade, a tangible reality… for which she was willing to sacrifice everything.
The scene shifted again, to an almost endless series of argunts—between her parents, between her father and grandfather, between her parents and grandfather—and with her grandfather's students, her parents' friends...
Her father never ceased trying to take her away from Eileen, who showed an equally unyielding stance. Little Ravenna went from feeling torn and helpless to becoming indifferent and numb. She learned to focus solely on her studies and self-improvent, making the dull greyness of the world ever more pronounced in her eyes.
Next, it seed she would soon revisit a scene she had tried desperately to forget but also dared not, could not, and would not forget.
Unexpectedly, that scene did not co. Her mories sped past, showing her monotonous teenage life, studying and researching with Eileen's students, continuing to explore this world, seeking ways to forge a future.
These were so of the few happy monts in Ravenna's twenty-one years of life, where a group of people with the sa ideals and convictions supported each other, filled with passion and dreams for the future. In this fervent environnt, Ravenna thrived.
But as ti passed, she began to realize... despite the vast differences in technique and strength, there was a fundantal divergence in thought patterns and perspectives between herself and the others.
As she grew older, she understood Eileen more and more, grew to despise the monotonous, stagnant, unchanging grey world, the so-called extraordinary hell and prison, yet found that others did not have the clarity of recognition she had, or perhaps... they were utterly incapable of effecting any change.
Ravenna reminisced about Eileen's words, stating that only a true genius could realize that future.
Thus, she began to tread her path alone, gradually becoming accustod to solitude, increasingly isolating herself from others. She beca lonely, then accustod to loneliness, until one day, she received a letter
— A correspondence from soone claiming to be Faust.
rely through a few exchanges of letters, Ravenna had already regarded him as a confidant, yet she had not anticipated their eting to be so...
Boom!!
The intense thunder nearly dissipated Ravenna's consciousness.
When she regained her senses, she saw the tumultuous clouds in the night sky, the rolling thunder within the clouds, the endless downpour beneath the thunder, and amidst the rainstorm... herself and him.
"So all of this was a lie?"
She numbly asked the boy in the rainstorm.
"Yes, all lies."
The blond boy, leaning on a scepter, maintained his composure even in the storm: "It was a lie I concocted to make you wholly submit to ."
"…I see, so that's why you refused to make your pact head, because I wasn't loyal enough, because I wouldn't place you above all else."
Ravenna in the rainstorm was no longer the tender, naive girl of her youth. Though she hadn't grown much in appearance, her deanor and aura had turned cold and hard. The rain pouring on her was like pouring on a piece of steel.
"So you never really thought about realizing our ideals."
"…Never thought about?"
The boy opposite her suddenly asked.
"Never… thought about? Never thought about… Hahahaha!"
The boy, who had been calm and composed, suddenly burst into hysterical laughter.
The darkness and the rainstorm couldn't hide the brilliance of his sea-blue eyes, but now, that brilliance wasn't beautiful and gentle, but rather... furious and mad.
"So you truly believe that, all this ti, everything I've done, everything I've said, was all lies, right?"
"When I said I couldn't stand with you, you thought all I did for you was an illusion, every word I spoke was false, my feelings for you…"
The boy gripped his scepter tightly, roaring in the rainstorm, his furious voice even overpowering the thunder, silencing the heavens with his rage: "My thoughts and feelings for you, were they all lies?!"
"Ravenna Ziegler…"
"Answer !"
Thunder roared again, shattering Ravenna's consciousness.
She was suddenly struck by the mory.
The emotions that Ansel had displayed in that mont, the youthful visage with eyes of ocean blue, and the words that were... all the pent-up anger, sorrow, resentnt, confusion, and... powerlessness that had erupted.
How could it be... a lie?
Why did she believe it to be a falsehood?
She needed more clarity, just a bit more... the final piece!
Ravenna, the present Ravenna, a phantom pierced by the storm, cried out to the mory of Ansel:
"Ansel... why! What made you give up? If… if you had told ... how could I not have believed you, Ansel... Ansel!"
As the sensation of surfacing intensified, Ravenna's tone grew more frantic, she desperately questioned the apparition in her mory, yet inevitably received no response.
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