Chapter 155
Marshall sensed Ultear’s location and teleported directly to her.
By the time he arrived, she had already released her Transformation Magic and returned to her real appearance.
She was sitting alone at the edge of a cliff with her knees drawn up, staring silently across the sea.
Pale moonlight spilled over her dark hair and shoulders, wrapping her in a faint silver glow that made her look almost like a spirit born beneath the night sky—mysterious, distant, and strangely fragile.
Marshall stopped for a moment.
When this woman wasn’t opening her mouth to say something infuriating, she could actually look rather beautiful.
"You came."
Ultear’s voice was dry and hoarse, the unmistakable result of having cried for a long time.
Marshall walked over and sat beside her as though nothing unusual had happened.
"What? Was I not supposed to?"
"No..."
Ultear hesitated before quietly asking, "Can I hug you for a while?"
She lowered her eyes.
"Just... as a friend."
Marshall sighed dramatically.
"Honestly, I’m way too kind."
He shifted closer.
"Fine. Temporary access granted."
Ultear almost laughed despite herself.
Instead, she pulled him into a tight embrace and rested her face against his shoulder.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The sound of waves breaking against the cliff below filled the silence.
Eventually, Ultear began to talk.
"When I was little, I collapsed with a terrible fever."
Her voice trembled.
"When I woke up, I was in a laboratory I’d never seen before."
"The people from the Bureau of Magical Development told me that my mother had abandoned me. They said she didn’t want me anymore... that she’d handed me over to them."
Marshall listened without interrupting.
"At first, of course I didn’t believe them."
Ultear’s fingers tightened around the fabric of his clothes.
"But after I escaped from the laboratory and finally saw my mother again..."
Her breathing became uneven.
"She was smiling at her students."
"She looked happy."
"And for some reason, I couldn’t even bring myself to walk up to her and ask what had happened."
"I just... believed what Brain had told me."
Her voice cracked.
"Marshall, do you think I’m stupid?"
She gave a broken little laugh.
"I believed the lies of the people who hurt me, but I wouldn’t believe my own mother."
"For all these years, I hated her over something that never even happened."
Her grip tightened further.
"When all along... I was the one who owed her an apology."
"I was the one who misunderstood everything."
"I was the one who—"
Her words collapsed into a sob.
Marshall could hear far more than what she was saying aloud.
He could hear the guilt underneath it.
The years of resentment that had suddenly lost their foundation.
The horror of realizing that so much of her life had been shaped by a lie.
He knew that if he wanted to, he could give her exactly the comforting answer she wanted to hear.
He could tell her none of it had been her fault.
He could tell her she had made perfectly reasonable choices.
He could wrap everything in soft words and make her feel better for a little while.
But Marshall didn’t want to lie to her.
So he didn’t.
"You were pretty stupid."
Ultear froze.
Marshall continued without mercy.
"Ridiculously stupid, actually."
"You let one misunderstanding control your life for years, and now you’ve discovered that almost everything you believed was built on a lie."
"You lost your childhood."
"You lost your family."
"You lost years you can never get back."
"And while you were busy hating the wrong person, the people responsible for what happened used you as a weapon."
He glanced at her.
"You’ve been dancing to somebody else’s tune for half your life."
Ultear’s face crumpled.
"W-Waaah... stop!"
She buried her face against his shoulder again.
"I’m already miserable! Why are you making it worse?!"
Marshall looked genuinely puzzled.
"You asked whether I thought you were stupid."
"I answered honestly."
"That’s not how you’re supposed to answer!"
Ultear sniffled miserably.
"Couldn’t you lie to me just once?"
"I just wanted you to comfort me..."
Marshall went quiet.
Then he turned toward her properly and gently raised her face so she would look at him.
Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
His expression, for once, contained no teasing.
"Haven’t enough people lied to you already?"
Ultear stopped breathing for a moment.
Marshall’s voice remained calm.
"Your life has been shaped by deception from beginning to end."
"Do you really want to cover the truth with another pleasant lie just because it hurts less?"
Ultear said nothing.
"If you genuinely can’t find anything else you trust anymore..."
Marshall met her eyes.
"Then trust me."
"I won’t lie to you."
Ultear stared at him.
Her lips trembled.
Then whatever fragile wall she had managed to rebuild collapsed completely.
"Marshall—!"
She threw her arms around him again and burst into tears.
This time she cried without restraint, clinging to him like someone who had finally found somewhere safe enough to stop pretending she was strong.
Marshall could only endure being used as a human pillow while awkwardly patting her back and trying to help her breathe normally.
He wasn’t particularly good at comforting crying girls.
He simply had one enormous advantage over most people.
He could hear what Ultear actually needed.
She didn’t need empty reassurance.
She didn’t need someone to insist that every decision she had ever made had been justified.
At that moment, what she needed most was simply someone who would stay.
So Marshall stayed.
Ultear cried for more than half an hour.
Whenever another memory surfaced, she spoke about it.
Her years inside the Bureau.
Her hatred for Ur.
Her involvement with dark guilds.
Her obsession with changing the past.
The things she regretted.
The things she wished she had done differently.
Sometimes her sentences barely made sense through the tears, but Marshall never interrupted.
She didn’t really need answers.
She needed someone to listen while she emptied out more than a decade of resentment, grief, guilt, and loneliness.
Eventually, exhaustion caught up with her.
Her eyes were swollen, her voice had gone hoarse, and only occasional quiet sobs remained as she leaned against Marshall.
By then, Marshall had heard the most honest parts of Ultear’s heart.
Her regret was real.
So was her confusion about what came next.
And Marshall had never intended to be the kind of person who merely listened, nodded sympathetically, and then walked away.
If Ultear had decided to place her future in his hands, then he would also help her carry the weight of her past.
"Now that you know the truth," he asked quietly, "what do you want to do?"
Ultear didn’t move.
"Do you still want to go back in time?"
"...I don’t know."
Her answer came after a long silence.
"I really don’t."
"I can’t think clearly anymore."
"I don’t want to go anywhere."
"I don’t want to do anything."
She tightened her arms around him again.
"This is comfortable."
"I think I could stay like this forever."
"Nope."
Marshall immediately pushed her back.
Ultear blinked.
He looked down at the front of his clothes, which were thoroughly soaked with tears, and pinched the fabric away from himself with obvious disgust.
"Are you secretly made of water?"
"You’ve used up your free trial."
"No more hugging!"
Ultear’s cheeks reddened slightly.
"Sorry..."
She wiped at her eyes.
"I’ll clean your clothes."
"Forget the clothes."
Marshall waved it off.
"I’m being serious."
He looked directly at her again.
"Do you still intend to return to the past and pursue that dream of yours?"
"Creating some supposedly happy Great Magic World?"
Ultear fell silent.
Her fingers absently smoothed the wrinkled fabric where she had been clutching his clothes.
"I... really don’t know anymore."
"Of course I still want to be happy."
She gave a faint, bitter smile.
"But I don’t have the same obsession I used to."
"When I think about the person I was before—the one who believed finding Zeref would somehow lead me to happiness—I almost feel embarrassed."
Her gaze drifted toward the sea.
"Master Hades once told me that Zeref was a man who never smiled."
She laughed weakly.
"Trying to learn the secret of happiness from someone who was never happy himself..."
"I must have lost my mind back then."
"Zeref..."
Marshall gave a quiet chuckle.
"Let’s not talk about him right now."
"There’s something else."
Ultear turned back toward him.
Marshall’s expression became more serious.
"I think there may be a way to save your mother."
Ultear stopped moving.
For several seconds, she seemed unable to understand the words.
Then her head snapped up.
"W-What?"
Her eyes widened.
"Marshall, what did you just say?!"
"You know how I obtained Ur’s memories earlier?"
Marshall raised one hand.
A small sphere of pale light formed above his palm.
"This is essentially sealed information—a self-contained package of memories created through extremely advanced Information Magic."
He looked at her.
"Do you think Ur knew how to use anything like this?"
Ultear shook her head immediately.
"N-No."
"My mother only specialized in Ice-Make Magic."
"She didn’t know anything about Memory Magic or Information Magic."
Her eyes remained fixed on the light.
Then something changed in her expression.
A possibility appeared.
A terrifyingly hopeful possibility.
"Marshall..."
Her voice trembled.
"You mean..."
"That’s right."
Marshall closed his fingers around the light.
"This doesn’t feel like Ur’s work."
"If anything..."
"It resembles my Magic."
Ultear stared at him.
Marshall continued slowly.
"I’ve told you before that I firmly believe I’ll eventually become capable of traveling through time."
"For me, it has never been a question of whether I can do it."
"Only when."
The sea breeze stirred his hair.
"Today we watched Ur’s ice disappear."
"But seeing that ice melt doesn’t actually prove that Ur herself is permanently dead."
Ultear’s breathing became shallow.
Marshall laid out the possibility carefully.
"So think about it."
"What if, at some point in the future, I master Time Magic well enough to travel into the past?"
"What if I return to the moment before everything becomes irreversible, save Ur, and then leave behind those two information packages so that events still unfold the way I remember?"
Ultear’s eyes grew brighter with every word.
Marshall shrugged.
"Would future me do something that troublesome just to save someone important to a woman close to me?"
He gave a crooked smile.
"Yeah."
"I know myself."
"I absolutely would."
Ultear grabbed his shoulders.
"Really?!"
"Marshall, are you serious?!"
"You’re not lying to me?!"
Marshall smiled.
"I already told you, Ultear."
"As long as you choose to trust me, I won’t deceive you."
"So you’re asking the wrong person."
He met her gaze steadily.
"The real question is..."
"Do you believe me?"
Ultear didn’t hesitate.
"I do!"
Her answer came almost immediately, raw and absolute.
"I believe you!"
She wiped desperately at the fresh tears gathering in her eyes.
"I’ll believe you forever."
"Forever and ever."
"No matter what happens..."
"I’ll trust you Marshall."