The night wind on the roof carried a chill, brushing past Ultear's scattered hair strands.
She seemed not to have heard Shane's comment carrying his customary mockery at all, her pitch-black eyes staring unfocused at a tree branch weighed down by snow not far away.
The same moon and snow.
This excessively similar scene made her involuntarily overlap it with a certain unbearable fragment in her memory.
Shane looked at her distraught appearance and wasn't narcissistic enough to think Ultear's abnormality was caused by him.
He thought slightly, associating it with the name Gray had mentioned.
He walked to her side, didn't sit down, but looked down at her silhouette outlined with a soft glow by the moonlight, asking flatly, "Thinking about your mother?"
"—Mhm."
Ultear's answer was unexpectedly calm, not a single ripple in her tone.
This actually surprised Shane a bit.
According to the experience of several previous contacts, as long as he slightly touched upon words related to her mother like "Ur," "Ice-Make," or "Gray."
Ultear would react fiercely like a cat whose tail was stepped on.
However, these had nothing to do with him.
Ultear wasn't his acquaintance; there was no need to pay attention to the other party's abnormality.
In fact, Shane had ridden the train for a day, plus the energy consumed dealing with that group of noisy guys in the guild, drowsiness was attacking him in waves right now.
Extremely exhausted!
So, if there wasn't anything important, he didn't really want to accompany her here blowing cold wind and admiring the moon.
"You made noise to call me over; surely not just wanting to admire the moon together or chat about these things, right?" Shane asked straightforwardly.
This flat reaction made Ultear, who had finally built up her psychological defense and prepared to reveal part of the truth, hold her breath.
She inhaled a mouthful of cold air deeply before barely suppressing the surging emotions in her heart.
Every time she talked to this person, she felt her emotions fluctuating greatly, difficult to maintain calm.
"Actually—" She let go of her hands hugging her knees, casually gathering her long hair messed up by the night wind. "I was one of the participants in the child experiments of Brain's Bureau of Magical Development."
"So that's it." Shane nodded.
This information answered part of his previous doubts.
No wonder Ultear held hostility toward Brain; that kind of hatred stemming from childhood trauma couldn't be let go by anyone.
But new questions followed.
Two people with such deep hatred, who or what power kneaded them together to temporarily become partners?
Ultear seemed to have fallen into the whirlpool of memories, her eyes unfocused, continuing to narrate in that flat tone: "That day, I was abandoned by my mother, left at—"
Seeing the girl fall into memories, not seemingly joking, Shane fell silent and listened attentively.
The night wind swept across the roof, bringing the faint sound of accumulated snow sliding off in the distance.
Ultear took another deep breath, but this time, she was adjusting her emotions.
"I was abandoned by my mother, sent into Brain's Bureau of Magical Development, treated as an experiment for increasing Magic Power since childhood—both body and mind became dilapidated because of this."
"Mhm." Shane responded.
He roughly understood why the other party developed such an extreme and awkward personality now.
Ultear continued, a trace of cold hardness added to her voice. "Later, I escaped from that place, ran home desperately, wanting to find my mother—but what I saw when I returned home was my mother with other children, full of happy smiles."
"So that child was Gray."
Shane immediately linked the clues together. "Your attitude toward Gray is so bad because—jealousy?"
He raised an eyebrow, feeling this plot was a bit like the family ethics drama heard in taverns, carrying a bit of melodramatic flavor.
Ultear's breathing obviously quickened a bit, her earlobes turning slightly red under the moonlight.
She glared at Shane fiercely, skipping those details that embarrassed her, and said quickly, "Anyway, later I increased my Magic Power and destroyed that place that used me for experiments with my own hands. Then—"
She paused, seeming to weigh her words. "I met that 'Abyss of Magic', the person who taught me the Lost Magic—Arc of Time."
"You destroyed the Bureau of Magical Development?" Hearing this news, Shane couldn't help exclaiming.
Ultear glanced sideways at him, her expression unchanged. "So what if I did?"
"Mhm, if that's the case, my opinion of you has changed a little." Shane was stunned for a moment, then looked back at her calmly.
Ultear didn't take his words, just shifting her gaze to the distance and continuing, "That person took a fancy to my talent and promised me conditions I couldn't refuse."
"So I agreed to work by his side, and because of this, following that person's order, temporarily cooperated with Brain."
"The purpose?" Shane pressed, frowning. "What is your purpose? Could it be that person also wants to use the R-System to resurrect Zeref?"
"No."
Ultear denied his guess. She turned her head slowly, meeting Shane's gaze head-on for the first time. "There's no need for resurrection at all. That most evil Black Mage—never left this world."
She enunciated word by word, clearly spitting out that name enough to shake the entire magic world: "Zeref—he has always been alive."
"Zeref is still alive?" Even with Shane's calmness, he couldn't help but exclaim in a low voice at this moment, his pupils constricting abruptly.
Zeref? That existence living in legends and history books, who created countless demons, whose name was enough to make children cry, worthy of being called the pinnacle of Black Mages—was actually still alive?
This news was too shocking, making him somewhat incredulous for a moment, subconsciously murmuring, "How is this possible—then building the Tower of Heaven, what exactly was the purpose?"
"Just wanted to use the Tower of Heaven built by Brain to attract the attention of those people in the Magic Council, a conspicuous enough target."
Ultear lowered her eyelids, her long eyelashes casting faint shadows on her face. "As for our true purpose—
—I can't say."
Last question.
Shane forced himself to calm down from the explosive news of "Zeref is still alive." He stared at Ultear and asked the key question: "Why are you suddenly willing to cooperate? It couldn't really be this pair of shackles on your feet that made you change your mind, right?"
Ultear cast her gaze back to the bright moon in the sky, the lively scene in Fairy Tail inexplicably flashing through her mind.
After a moment of silence, she spoke softly, her voice carrying some emotion difficult to discern. "I just figured it out—people, ultimately have to rely on themselves.
"Placing all wishes and chips on one person, once failed, will lose everything."
Shane's eyes moved slightly, seeming to capture the unfinished meaning in her words. "So, you mean?"
"Mhm." Ultear responded lightly.
"The strength of your Fairy Tail is also very strong. Whether it's that Wizard Saint Master, or that lecherous—
Gildarts, and you, Shane, are all very strong."
She took a slight breath and stated her final decision: "So, I want—to put some of my 'eggs' in your basket."