In the dimly lit room, dozens of wine bottles were scattered haphazardly on the floor.
Long red hair was tangled and draped over a face with a once-determined expression.
Erza sat curled up in the corner of the room, her arms wrapped around her knees, burying her face deeply within them.
Since the day she and the others had bid farewell to Noel, Erza had locked herself away in this room, maintaining this posture.
Guilt engulfed her heart like an endless tide, and pain ravaged her soul like an unstoppable storm.
"It's all my fault... everything is my fault... If it weren't for , Noel wouldn't have been ambushed by Jellal... it's my naivety... that led to Noel's death..."
The young girl's body trembled slightly.
Every ti she closed her eyes, the image of that crumbling tower, constantly erupting with magic, would appear.
There, the boy who had smiled so beautifully and gently even before his death, tremblingly whispered the words "I'm sorry, forget ," and disappeared into the brilliant light.
--------------------
The morning sunlight, accompanied by the humid sea breeze, filtered through the window of a small seaside cottage and gently brushed against a girl lying on the bed.
The girl had short red hair, the color of a sunset, with an eye patch over her striking face.
She was wearing tattered clothes, resembling a prisoner who had just escaped from so kind of cage.
As if sensing the taste of the sea breeze and sunlight, the girl's eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly opened her eyes.
(What happened to ?... That's right... I rember now, I was expelled by Jellal, I took a small boat to leave the Tower of Heaven, and then I encountered the waves...)
The red-haired girl placed her hand on her forehead, trying to organize her scattered thoughts.
Then she lifted her head and realized she was lying on a bed in a run-down little cottage.
(Did soone save ?)
The girl stood up, dragging her tired body out of the cottage.
What greeted her eyes was the endless, vast blue sea.
The sea in the early morning was surprisingly calm.
The gently rippling tides, under the faint morning mist, appeared peaceful and beautiful, dyed red by the rising sun.
Fragnts of sunlight floating in the sky were reflected on the surface of the sea, shining brightly and peacefully.
Against this backdrop, Erza's attention was drawn to a child with golden hair, standing on a rock by the beach, gazing out toward the sea.
The child had shoulder-length golden hair, a color neither as dazzling as the sun nor as dull as shadows.
Under the morning sunlight, it glead with an unusual radiance.
It seed so close, as if she could reach out and grasp it with her hand, but as soon as she moved, she found it just as distant, even more so, creating an inexplicable sense of emptiness from the action itself.
Driven by so unknown impulse, Erza slowly walked up behind the child and, uncontrollably, blurted out, "What are you doing here?"
It seed the golden-haired child heard Erza's call, as he slowly turned his head.
At that mont, Erza finally saw the child's face clearly.
It was a handso and ethereal face, with delicate features that were harmoniously and perfectly combined.
But what was most striking were his deep blue eyes.
At first glance, his eyes were a light blue, like the sky.
However, when you looked closely, you would realize that the blue was just the surface, and deeper within them, there was a sense of vastness, emptiness, loneliness, and profound depth.
The golden-haired child's gaze was very calm—so calm, it bordered on lifelessness.
Yet, from his gaze, Erza could still sense that he was observing her.
She wasn't sure how much ti passed, but just as Erza thought she wouldn't get an answer, the child finally spoke, though his response left her even more confused.
"Look."
The single word was sowhat hoarse but carried a magnetic quality as it reached Erza's ears.
By the ti the child spoke, he had already returned to his original posture, as if the word he had just spoken was no longer connected to him.
"Look?"
Look at what?
Although she had received an answer, Erza's sense of confusion only deepened.
Driven by curiosity, Erza couldn't help but follow the child's gaze.
To her surprise, it was easy to understand the aning behind his words.
The child had clearly acted to verify what he had said.
He was looking.
Looking at the vast blue sea, the expansive sky, the soaring seagulls, and the swimming fish...
He was looking at everything before him.
Erza turned her gaze to the child, noticing how focused he was, as if he wanted to engrave everything before him into his mind. She could even see the unmistakable... longing in his eyes.
(... What is so special about all of this? What is he longing for?)
Erza thought to herself, her left eye, uncovered by the eye patch, unconsciously revealing a deep sense of confusion.
It seed the child noticed the aning behind Erza's gaze.
He gave a soft laugh and spoke, "Do you think these things are ordinary? Because they are so common. Do you think they are not worth noticing? Because they have no value?"
Once the questions ended, the child suddenly made an action that left Erza even more confused.
He slowly extended his right hand, reaching into the air as if trying to grasp sothing.
After a mont, he opened his palm and looked at it, a faint, sorrowful air surrounding him.
"... But they have qualities I will never have. These qualities are what make envy them."
Silence spread like the tides of the ocean.
After a long while, Erza broke the silence, "Did you... save ?"
"Save you? If you an bringing the unconscious you from the beach to this abandoned house, then yes, that was ." The child's voice was flat, without any fluctuation.
Erza was slightly taken aback but quickly understood the golden-haired child's aning.
To him, what he had done didn't really count as "saving" her.
Realizing this, Erza was montarily speechless.
It seed that the child noticed Erza's awkwardness.
The corners of his mouth curved upward slightly, and he turned his gaze back to the distant horizon.
"Do you like this world?" the child asked.
"Huh?" The sudden question made Erza pause, but her body reacted faster than her mind, and she instinctively responded with a question of her own, "What about you?"
Upon hearing Erza's reply, the child let out a barely noticeable sigh. "I... used to like this world... very much..."
"And now?" Erza couldn't help but ask further.
"Now... I don't know..." The child's expression suddenly beca a bit lost, and his focused gaze began to fade into a distant, dreamy look. "I... once thought that, in this world... if you just put in enough effort, you would surely be rewarded. But then I understood... sotis, there are things you can't control... and what you get isn't always what you want."
Erza instinctively parted her lips as if to speak, but no words ca out.
The child's words were like hands that plucked the strings of her heart.
Her mind flashed back to a few days ago, to the horrific face of Jellal, and a trace of sorrow quietly crept onto Erza's cheeks.
"But..." The golden-haired child slowly stood up and gazed at the rising sun.
His voice, soft as if speaking to himself, continued, "I also understand now, no matter how many tis you fall, as long as you can stand up again, the road must continue."
Erza looked at the child's face, where a smile, a mixture of bitterness, helplessness, and determination, appeared at the corners of his lips.
It was warm and dazzling, almost as if it had entered Erza's heart through her eyes.
For a mont, she was lost in thought.
The sun had completely risen, casting its light across the earth.
A boy and a girl sat silently on a rock by the sea, watching the vast ocean, in silence, not saying a word.
---------------
As Erza fell into her mories, a loud knocking sound ca from outside the door.
"Erza, co out, Noel isn't dead, did you hear that?!" Natsu's voice ca from outside the door.
"What?!"
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