Royal Pride (Leona Kingscholar/Yuu)

22 ~ Worst Of All

POSSIBLE T/W: mentions of injury, violence, dark thoughts (read at your own discretion)

A/N: This chapter contains a lot of descriptions of pain and suffering, so feel free to skip it if that makes you uncomfortable (or if my poor representation of what I'm trying to get across bores you)!

If Yuu wasn't in so much agony, she would be questioning many things, like how the brother had a signature spell that played right at her weaknesses—specifically exploiting her mental state.

His spell recalled many of her memories, specifically the traumatic ones. It brought up things she'd tried her best to not think about over the years, forcing her to watch the worst of them vividly play out, the memories overlapping, yet all of them as clear as the day they'd first occurred.

It brought her back to when she was a child in Briar Valley, getting into a fight with a child who told her that half-breeds like her were worse than humans. Back to how all of her friends ostracized her in middle school when she told them her father was a fae.

Back to all of the thoughts that used to play on repeat in her head.

The other things she could work through—they were just memories, no matter how awful they were. But the thoughts. The thoughts were what got her.

'You're worthless.'

'You don't belong anywhere.'

'No one truly likes you.'

'You'd be better off dead.'

Soon, she couldn't tell if he was still using his magic or if her self-loathing had come back full force. She imagined all of the people she cared about looking down at her in scorn, spitting those terrible words as they abandoned her, just like everyone always seemed to.

And Leona was the worst.

She cared about him so deeply that her mind has chosen him as the subject to express the most revulsion. In her head, he made the cruelest, most personal barbs, all with a sneer on his face.

'It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.' Yuu kept telling herself, but the thoughts kept screaming in her ear, almost audibly.

When she got lost in her head like this, time seemed to become void. It had only been about a day, but it felt like an eternity to her.

They were trying to scare her. Well, it worked. She was plenty scared. Defeated, even. She just wanted this all to be over. To end. She would rather they just kill her and be done with it. Tears were rolling down her face, breath shaky and head pounding.

All of the kicks and bruises made her physically ache all over as well. Not to mention she was still weakened under the influence of whatever they'd gotten from Azul, so all of the blows were affecting her twice as much.

She'd been reduced to a curled-up ball, whimpering and occasionally letting out pathetic whispers for help that no one would hear. "Leona," was what she would most often cry when she found her ability to articulate, but the siblings only ridiculed her for it.

"I'm getting bored~ Think we have time to mess with her a little longer?" The girl whined, running a finger on a sharp object, probably some random piece of glass she had found on the ground.

The guy raised an eyebrow at her. "We shouldn't linger for too long, unless you wanna get caught. Five more minutes, if you'd like."

The girl walked over and clenched her hands tightly around Yuu's neck for a few seconds, tossing the glass shard to the ground. "That's no fun," she groaned, finally releasing her. "Let's just go now."

They walked out wordlessly, as though they didn't just get done torturing someone. And for what? For their little cult? Yuu hated that she had to suffer, but it was even worse knowing that it was all for nothing. There was no valiant cause, no point in hanging on. She was being abused for the heck of it.

She had lost most of her voice from screaming and had cried so hard she felt like she couldn't cry anymore. She simply laid on the floor, eyelids half-shut, staring ahead at the unmoving scenery and hoping that anyone would arrive soon.

The door slammed open, but Yuu couldn't bring herself to move her head. She recognized those footsteps. Her hands and feet were being untied, yet she couldn't move. They were speaking, yet she couldn't respond. She could hardly process what they were saying.

Leona tried to set her upright, but her body wouldn't move how she willed it. She simply did not have enough willpower to even try and make eye contact with him. She could still imagine the demented version of him that her mind had created shunning her, saying the cruelest things of all.

Seeing Yuu from Leona's perspective broke his heart. It hurt him in a way he'd never been hurt before. He just wanted to hold her tight and never let go.

As gently as he could as to not aggravate her wounds, he picked her up and walked back as fast as he could without moving her too much. Everyone was silent—how were they supposed to react?

Finally, he had gotten her back on campus and to the infirmary. The nurse was utterly taken aback by the injuries of the student before him.

"What happened here?" He asked in shock, readying his equipment. The three of them looked at each other, unsure of how exactly to answer. How would they explain everything that built up to this? They themselves didn't even know what happened in that abandoned cabin.

"I'm going to disinfect her wounds. I'll need to shut these curtains for a bit."

Yuu seemed to be jolted back to full consciousness once again, but only to exist in pain. The disinfectant burned, possibly hurting worse than when the wounds were originally inflicted. What was worse—the mental affliction, or this?

Despite how much her voice hurt, she let out a blood-curdling scream. It was the only response she could muster to the amount of pain.

Leona's eyes shot open and his hand flew to his mouth, his nails digging into his skin. Within the last 24 hours, he had felt worse emotional pain than he'd ever felt in his life, and it just seemed to get worse.

Ruggie put a hand on his back in a sad attempt to comfort him, doing little. Silver simply stood with his eyes shut. The screams were horrible for anyone to hear, but Leona felt them the deepest.

He felt so connected to her that it almost felt like he was the one who'd gotten hurt. She became important to him last year, but this year she grew on him exponentially. He couldn't live without her.

And as much as he liked—no, as much as he loved her, it seemed like he could never make a moment of peace for them.