Chapter 1163 Now
The current Aina didn't have the presence of maturity and elegance that a woman slowly reaching her prime should have. Her current mindset was quite infantile and she still hadn't quite grasped concepts of her own feminine wiles and charms. In addition, she had already learned to perfectly control her own mental coercion. After the shackles on her talent were released, she improved by leaps and bounds everyday. And yet…
None of it seemed to matter.
For those here, this was the greatest beauty they had ever laid eyes on. Despite her indifference to the world, it only added to her charms, making her seem as though she had descended from another world entirely.
The current Aina wore a flexible armor that wrapped around her curves almost too well, an enormous battle ax of red-gold hovering to her back. Her every step carried its own explosive power and the depth of black her armor and hair shared seemed to give her the tinge of a devilish vibe.
Leonel fell into silence when his gaze landed on her again for the second time in a month. His expression didn't flicker and his arms remained crossed about his chest. He could tell with a single glance that she had improved vastly since he last saw her, even after all his own improvements, he had next to no certainty of defeating her. In fact, he faintly felt that he might very well lose.
It was a surprising conclusion for Leonel to come to, but it hardly moved the needle for him one way or another.
After a month of rest, Leonel felt that he finally understood what bothered him so much about all of this.
Objectively, he knew how he had hurt Aina. She was in a vulnerable point in her life and she was heavily reliant on him. That moment hadn't been the first time she got mad at him for risking his life for the sake of others, he had lost count of the number of times she had insisted that he should put himself first.
He and Aina had been clashing in this way even long before they made their relationship official. That day, when Leonel excitedly left the Mayan Zone, eager to see her again, and she pierced a hand through Conrad's heart… Leonel knew that that had been her way of waking him up to reality.
Not only was she not solely that shy and timid girl he had known, but she was precisely the kind of cold blooded murderer Leonel himself never wanted to become.
Time and time again, they faced this exact clash. Even in the Joan Zone, when Aina and he almost died because he was too soft with how he used his blade, even so far back they had always butted heads.
Leonel knew this. He knew how she felt. So why had he reacted the way he had? The answer was so obvious that Leonel felt that he had been running away from it as opposed to chasing it like he should have been…
All those years, Leonel had always been chasing after Aina, always doing the things she wanted, how she wanted to do them. He never batted an eye, never complained, and always followed along, happy just to be by her side.
This wasn't a burden on him, and for him to pretend like it had been would be nothing more than revisionist history. He had been happy to do it. She was the woman he loved, the only woman he loved. To him, doing things for her wasn't a sacrifice, it was a pleasure, a privilege…
However, when the day came that Leonel finally had something he wanted to fight for himself, a goal he wanted to aspire toward and chase… Rather than receiving the same sort of support he had always given Aina, what he received in return was doubt and insecurity.
When Leonel told Aina about his dreams, about how he wanted to unite the Dimensional Verse and have her by his side as his queen, he didn't receive the eagerness and support he had been expecting. Instead, he received a questioning that he would have expected from a stranger or a person who didn't care about what his own hopes and aspirations were…
He received the words of a person who didn't believe in him.
That day, when Aina left him, it was just more of the same. Leonel understood how she felt, he truly did. She had gone through so much trauma in her life and didn't deserve any more. But, in his eyes, the fundamental root of it all was that she didn't believe in him.
When Leonel met an opponent that didn't believe in him, he would just defeat them. When he met an enemy that didn't believe in him, he would just kill them. When he met a mountain no one believed he could climb, he would ignore those who looked down on him and climb it anyway.
The one fundamental truth about himself was that he absolutely hated to lose. Maybe why he was so good at following his father's mantras of Respect and Persistence was exactly because of this. This was such a core part of who he was that he exceled in everything he did, even when it was something he didn't like very much.
Maybe this was Leonel's own brand of arrogance, that deep seeded belief in himself that couldn't accept the speculation and doubt of others.
The question though… Was what would he to do when the person who didn't believe in him was someone he had given his heart to?
How could he ignore her? How could he defeat her? How could he kill her?
He didn't know the answer to that. So…
He sat and watched as the love of his life wowed the crowd, her skills and movements breathing life into the world.
He sat and watched as she cleared her group, easily claiming her spot with her back to him.
He sat and watched as another man with a grin of pride on his face that should have been his own stepped before everyone, boisterously laughing as he pointed toward her…
"I want to thank the Montex and Luxnix family for allowing me this stage!" Rychard's voice boomed. "Now that today's event has ended and there will be a gap between today and the second day's rounds, I would like to make an announcement to everyone.
"Two days from now, my and my fiancée Aina Brazinger will be getting married. I invite all those in attendance today to bear witness to the first day of the rest of our lives."
A certain shift took place in the atmosphere. Feelings of awe, worship and envy took hold. To have such a woman as a wife… Just how lucky was this Viola family Crown Heir?
Finally… Leonel stopped watching, his eyes closing in peace.
He finally had his answer. Now, he could let go.
[Author's Note: I'll have to ask you guys to trust me, this won't end like you think it will. If you want books that can subvert tropes, you have to give an author a chance first, lmao. Anyhoo, the main purpose of this note is to tell you guys that my birthday is tomorrow so I won't be uploading. Will be back the day after, love you guys <3]