Slowly, her fists began to lose their strength. She couldn’t have taken pleasure in hitting her son like this.
Suddenly, Eris’s face exploded and she was sent tumbling backward. She fell safely and immediately jumped back to her feet, but her hair and face were burned.
It was magic. Arus had struggled enough to get his arm free from beneath Eris’s knee and used it to cast Fireball.
He rose to his feet, his face swollen, gripping the stump of his arm. His legs were shaking, but he managed to stand. He picked up Eris’s sword from nearby and tried to take a stance with it, but he didn’t have the strength left. He dropped it to the ground but held on. Though he fell to his knees, he dragged both the sword and his body forward.
He wasn’t headed for Eris. Was he fleeing?
No, he was returning to the front of his house. Once he managed to get in front of the door, he rested on both knees and tried to raise the sword. He once again lacked the strength, and the tip of the sword drove itself into the ground.
There was no way he could keep fighting like this—and yet his eyes peering out from beneath his bangs were filled with fire. They stayed locked on Eris and the rest of us.
I almost interrupted to say this was enough, but I swallowed my words. Eris said she’d handle it. I needed to leave it to her. She’d see this through to the end.
“So, what do you plan on doing?” she asked, breaking her stance and folding her arms while she looked down on our son.
Arus looked up at her bitterly, teeth clenched. “I’ll…die before…I let you…through…”
“You really are your father’s son,” Eris said before jerking her jaw up sharply. “But you won’t be able to truly protect her like that!”
“I…know…” he mumbled.
“You might be able to protect her as you are now, but you can’t truly keep her safe!”
“I know that!” he said, voice rising.
“Then…!”
Eris’s expression twisted. She turned to me with that same face and folded her arms. An imposing stance, for sure, but I could tell what she was thinking: I don’t know what to do. It seemed she’d been unable to communicate what she wanted.
Roxy stepped forward right after I realized that. She stepped in front of Arus, knelt down, and met his eyes. “Is sacrificing yourself to protect Aisha the right thing to do?”
“Yes… Yes!” Arus choked out.
“What do you think will happen to Aisha if you challenge someone you can’t defeat and die in battle?”
“I…then…what am I supposed to do?!”
“Rudy got on his knees,” Roxy said suddenly. My entire body tensed up.
“He once fought the Dragon God Sir Orsted and lost his magic armor and his arms. Right before his total defeat, he got to his knees, dropped his head to the ground, and begged Sir Orsted to spare us. When that didn’t work, he bit him. He bit Sir Orsted.”
“N-no way. There’s no way! Dad and Sir Orsted are so close!”
“They weren’t at first.”
Arus glanced over at me, and I nodded. It was embarrassing to have my son learn that I’d gotten on my knees and begged, but it was all the truth.
“What will you do? Will you keep fighting Eris and die? Do you not care what comes after that? Do you really not care what happens to Aisha after you perish?”
Arus remained silent.
She was interrogating him, but her tone was gentle.
Eventually, the sword fell from Arus’s hand. The weapon slid from atop his knees to the ground, where it made a dry clang as it hit the dirt. At the same time, tears began to fall from his eyes. Were these tears that came from understanding how weak he was? Or were they tears of another sort?
Finally, all the strength left his body, and he fell forward into Roxy’s arms.
He must have completely run out of adrenaline. There was a pool of blood at his feet. His face was swollen all over, and he was covered in blood. Yet somehow, as I looked at my son, I wasn’t worried. If anything, I was proud of him.
Arus was certainly immature; he was still weak and thought like a child. It was hardly surprising that he was okay with fighting and dying. He had matured in the last year, but there was a lot for him to learn about the world. But how many people in the world could go one-on-one with Eris and not give up after all of that? He’d lost his dominant hand, been straddled by Eris and beaten half to death, and he’d still kept fighting. Eris, of all people.
Arus was able to push himself so far because he felt the same thing I did when I challenged Sir Orsted all those years ago. Even if it meant dying, he was going to keep Aisha safe. He might have not known how best to do it. He might’ve been too weak to see things through. But in terms of his resolve, it was the same as mine back then.
Just thinking that caused something to bubble up from deep inside of my heart. I wanted to take Arus in my arms right that second and praise him. I wanted to tell him how proud I was of him for fighting to the end.
It was weird. In all reality, there was so much I needed to scold him for—running off and eloping, causing trouble for so many people…
He’d made too many mistakes to be ready to go out on his own, but he had grown. He wasn’t a small child anymore. The thought made me so happy.
I guess I really am a softie.
“Sylphie, can I leave him to you?” I asked.
“You’re not going to say anything to Arus?”
“Roxy already said everything I wanted to say.”
I didn’t need to say anything else to him. I’d heard what he wanted, and I’d seen his resolve. He showed me his determination. What Roxy said covered it all. I had no more objections. While I felt a natural resistance to Aisha and Arus’s relationship, that wasn’t something to force on him.
There were lots of other things I should’ve said, but I could save those for later. I didn’t just come here to see how much Arus had developed. I’d come here to talk to Aisha.
“I want to sit down and talk to Aisha first, just the two of us,” I told Sylphie.
“Mm, all right. I’ve got this.” Sylphie took a Saint-tier healing magic scroll from me and retrieved Arus’s hand before she ran back to us.
“Arus, I’m going to Aisha. We can discuss things further after that,” I explained.
Arus nodded weakly.
Eris and I exchanged a glance. She jerked her chin toward the house as if to say, Hurry up! Roxy also made eye contact with me and nodded.
I returned everyone’s nods, then entered the house.