Chapter 32: The Reunion
The two boys struggled in mid-air. Noah carried them a fair distance away, until he was sure they could no longer hear the conversation. Of course, with his own enhanced hearing, he could still hear everything perfectly.
Noah released the magic, and with a soft thump, the two of them landed in the snow.
"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?!" the black-haired boy yelled, scrambling to his feet and pointing at Noah.
The blue-silver-haired boy also got up and stood beside him, watching Noah warily.
"Me? I'm just a kind-hearted person who doesn't like to see tragedies happen. If you want to know what's going on, you'll have to wait until they're done talking. They'll tell you what you need to know. This is their private business; what they choose to share is up to them."
Seeing that the two boys were about to ask more questions, Noah held up a hand to stop them and pointed back towards the two figures who were now clinging to each other and sobbing. The boys saw this and could only stand by sullenly and wait.
Over by the hill, the sound of crying slowly began to subside. The woman held the little girl, tears still streaming down her face, and said in a choked voice, "Ultear... my Ultear... you're alive, you're really alive! This is wonderful, so wonderful!"
Hearing this, Ultear was stunned. Her crying stopped, and her tears ceased to fall. What is she talking about? What does she mean, I'm alive? Haven't I always been alive?
Ultear angrily pushed at the woman, trying to get away, but the woman held her tight, refusing to let her go.
"I've always been alive!" Ultear couldn't help but shout angrily. "You're the one who abandoned me!"
"But... when I went back to find them, they told me you were already dead."
The words the woman blurted out stunned Ultear into silence once again.
Just then, the woman also realized something was wrong. She raised her right hand and wiped her tears with her sleeve. She looked down at Ultear in her arms again. "Ultear, let's both tell each other everything we know. I think... I think we've both been deceived."
Ultear realized that what her mother was saying was completely different from what she had known and imagined. She nodded.
The woman started from the beginning. Ultear had been born with an unusually high level of magic power. As she grew, her magic became stronger and stronger, but her small body couldn't handle it, causing her to suffer from a constant high fever. The woman had desperately searched for a cure and finally heard of a special facility that could treat this condition: the Magic Development Bureau. She had entrusted Ultear to them, hoping they could heal her body and solve the problem of her high fever.
But then, disaster struck. When she went back to the Bureau after some time, the staff there informed her that Ultear had died and that her remains were in such a terrible state that it was best not to see them. The woman was overcome with grief but was forced to accept the fact that her daughter, Ultear, was gone. But today, seeing Ultear suddenly appear before her, the woman finally realized that everything the staff had told her was a lie. She had been tricked.
As she finished her story, tears began to flow uncontrollably again. She hugged her daughter tightly, feeling her warmth, truly sensing that her child was in her arms.
After listening, Ultear finally understood. Her mother hadn't abandoned her; she had taken her to be cured, only to be deceived into thinking she was dead. Gradually accepting this, Ultear began to tell the woman about her own experiences at the Magic Development Bureau.
When she first arrived, the staff had told her that her mother had asked them to make her magic stronger, and that she couldn't see her mother until they were finished. So, every day, she was subjected to experiments. All sorts of electric shocks and tests were performed on her. The non-stop magic amplification experiments were agonizing, leaving her physically and mentally exhausted. Whenever she was alone, all she could think about was seeing her mother, and she wanted to leave every single second.
Until early this morning. Her desire to see her mother once again had unintentionally triggered a magical outburst, shattering the glass of her room. Realizing she had a chance, she went through great hardship and finally escaped. That was when she met Noah, and with his help, she had rushed home without stopping to find her mother.
Full of hope, she had finally found her, only to see her mother laughing and chatting happily with two other boys. Seeing the blissful smile on her mother's face, Ultear had believed she had been abandoned and replaced by other children. If Noah hadn't physically brought her forward, she might have left with that terrible misunderstanding forever.
As the woman listened to Ultear describe the experiments at the Bureau, tears of rage streamed down her face. She clenched her jaw, and her magic power began to leak out uncontrollably, pressing down on the air and the ground around them. The two boys were terrified; they had never seen her so angry, her expression so frightening. They felt her terrifying presence and huddled together in fear. In her mother's arms, Ultear's expression didn't change. She continued her story with a slight sob in her voice, apparently not feeling the release of her mother's magic at all; the woman was subconsciously shielding her from it.
When Ultear said that she had luckily escaped from the Bureau, the woman let out a sigh of relief, and her expression softened. But when she heard that Ultear had run all night to get from the Bureau to their home, her heart ached as if it were being squeezed. And when Ultear confessed that she had just misunderstood and thought her mother had abandoned her, the woman broke down completely, hugging the small child in her arms and sobbing.
"How could I ever abandon you? How could I ever abandon you? You are the proof of my life! You are Ur's tear!"
Ultear finally understood the meaning of her name and her mother's feelings for her. Her mother would never abandon her; it had all been a misunderstanding. She couldn't help but start crying again. She hugged her mother, her voice hoarse.
"Mama... Mama, I missed you so much, Mama!"
Hearing her daughter's cries, Ur felt as if her heart was being torn apart. She held her daughter and cried with her.
The mother and daughter clung to each other, sobbing their hearts out. They cried for a long time, until they were both exhausted, and their cries slowly softened.
Far off to the side, the two boys heard their sorrowful cries and didn't dare to make a sound, staying perfectly still.
Noah also stood by and watched, waiting for the mother and daughter to vent all their emotions and truly feel each other's presence once more.