“That’s why I sought strength. Relentlessly and desperately. My little sister died because I was weak. If I was stronger... If only I had been stronger, she wouldn’t have died protecting me.”
Finally, the core of Cain’s being was laid bare. His fixation on strength and obsession on self-reliance all originated from this one terrible incident. He couldn’t rely on anyone else. He had to be stronger than everyone else. Those were the thoughts that drove him day after day. They were a blessing and a curse, simultaneously conferring upon him a hardened resolve and a twisted compulsion. The kinds of mayhem he’d thrown himself into over the years and the carnage he’d witnessed were probably beyond all imagination. He endured them all for one singular goal — to make himself stronger. The way he lived was a thing of awe, but it was also supremely dangerous; he constantly walked on a razor’s edge, on which either side was the oblivion of self-destruction.
“And why don’t you see that what you’re doing will only lead to the same tragedy happening again?”
“...What are you talking about?”
Sain bared his teeth in a frustrated grimace. Cain’s fixation on strength was so absolute that it was blinding him to the dangers it posed.
“Tell me something, Cain. When was the last time you lost to anyone?”
The question caught Cain off guard, and he frowned.
“I don’t remember. Whenever it was, it must have been before I became a student.”
“...In other words, ever since your sister died, you’ve basically never lost to anyone.”
“Of course. That’s why I got stronger. So I wouldn’t lose.”
That meant for an entire decade, Cain had never tasted defeat. It suddenly occurred to Sain that this was no small revelation. Something was keeping Cain chained to his misguided path, and this was surely a crucial piece of the puzzle. Slowly but surely, Sain was getting closer to solving it.
“That must be why there’s always a glaring hole in the way you think. You never lose, so you never think about what would happen if you did,” Sain said, working through the logic on the fly while Cain continued to frown at him. “I’ve only been here three months, and even I can tell that you’re not actually alone. Tons of people look up to you. If you ever suffered defeat, you would not do so in quiet solitude. There would be an uproar.”
The student council president, Cain Theresia, was no lone wolf. He was infamously unfriendly and difficult to approach, but to his fellow students, his standoffishness often came off as a form of charisma rather than hostility. They respected him as a dependable student council president. The teachers held him in high regard, as well. Even the audience in this arena was looking forward to his performance. Despite his obsession with fighting his lonely fight, he wasn’t at all alone. Sooner or later, that inherent contradiction would come to a head, with serious consequences for everyone involved.
“Just try imagining it. Picture yourself in a situation where you do lose. Isn’t there someone who might jump in? Someone who might place themselves in harm’s way to protect you?”
If a fight with Chaos ever pushed Cain to the limit and he was on the verge of defeat, there was very likely someone who wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing themselves to save him, just like his younger sister did so long ago.
“...I told you already. That’s why I got stronger. So that would never happen to me.”
Irritation entered Cain’s voice — a sure sign that the strongman act was starting to crack.
“It happens to everyone,” Sain said, his tone calm but absolute. “I get you, Cain. I really do. The more strength a person gains, the stronger the urge becomes to solve everything on their own. There is a tendency to try to bear the burden of strength alone. But the strength of a single man is a fragile thing, Cain... All it takes is one mistake, one moment of carelessness, for everything to fall apart.”
Sain’s words bore the weight of personal experience. There had been a time when he thought the same way. Before he’d started harboring doubts about his way of life as the holy knight, he’d tried to solve every problem by himself. Then, when he’d discovered that none of what he did could ever grant the goddess her wish, he finally realized that there existed problems which could not be solved by his power alone. That was why he enrolled in this academy hoping to find out more about dark magic, and it was also why he enthusiastically sought out a superior dark mage like Marni to learn from.
Only when he began to question himself did he realize that his path wasn’t heading in the right direction. In order to notice his error, he had to first accept that he could err. By the same logic, someone would have to first shatter the absolute confidence Cain had in himself before there was any chance of making him see the error of his ways.
“You know what you need to do, Cain? Lose . Just once. Then, you’d realize that you’re not fighting on your own.”
What Cain Theresia needed was to have his blind faith in himself thoroughly shaken for once. Unless he suffered a defeat significant enough to prompt some honest reflection, his iron will would keep him marching blindly forward toward his inevitable undoing.
“Says the holy knight who fancies becoming the dark knight. You dare lecture me,” Cain growled as irritation turned into honest anger, “while you’re shirking your duties to fool around with dark magic—”
“I’m not fooling around!” Sain matched Cain’s temper, shouting back at the enraged president. “I have my reasons for trying to get stronger, too!”
“To hell with your stupid reasons!”
Cain thrust his right hand up at the sky.
“Flash like serpent’s fangs — Lighto Whip! ”
A long strand of light appeared around his arm, and he swung it down at Sain’s head, who hopped out of the way just in time before quickly backing off to observe Cain’s next move. The whip kept coming, its long strand of light bending unpredictably through the air as it lashed out at him from all sorts of directions. The irregular motion of its rope-like structure would have thoroughly confused any ordinary student, robbing them of the ability to evade its strikes. Sain’s unparalleled familiarity with light magic, however, kept him from losing his cool.
“Dardia! ”