"I want your hand... down there..."
Sarah's whisper reached Leon's ears and tickled his brain.
'I know I was the one claiming that the best sort of intimacy is when the girl begs you for it...' Leon thought, gritting his teeth as his body involuntarily followed the girl's wishes. 'But I didn't expect her to become someone like that so quickly.'
There was a massive dissonance between Leon's logical side and the side that he never knew he had.
Up until that point, all his desires were suppressed by the slave collar locked on his neck. It came to a point where in order to keep his sanity, Leon came up with that logical persona of his that he could use to explain his decisions, often influenced by the said collar, as decisions he made on his own.
But in this world, there was no collar to suppress his natural instincts.
And when the girl tearfully begged for his hand to sneak towards her secret place while trembling in anticipation of it happening, Leon found out just how hollow his logical personality was.
His fingers rested upon the girl's soft stomach. Then, they moved down, rubbing against her warm skin as they traversed to her abdomen before moving even lower.
And right when he reached the point where Sarah's waist ended, the girl pushed her own hand into his pants only to tighten her fingers around his dick.
'I guess I was simply lying to myself all this time,' Leon thought. His heart accelerated its usual pace. The blood flew up both to his head and to his crotch, clouding his thoughts while pumping his manhood to its full extent.
"Ah!" Sarah moaned as soon as Leon's finger snuck inside her hole. At the same time, her hands started to move up and down, her wrists brushing against Leon's arm.
'It's quite hard to do each other when she is sitting on me like that,' Leon thought, his logical personality flashing by his mind.
And so, prompted by what he once considered to be his true self, Leon pulled his forefinger out of the girl, only to replace it with his middle finger.
Sarah squirmed up on his lap, heavily breathing right by Leon's ear.
But what the girl considered a treat, was just the first part of Leon's perfectly logical plan.
Because now that his middle finger was hooked against the girl's insides... he could use the rest of his fingers to press them against the outside of the girl's crotch... And then lift her hips up just high enough to stop their hands from striking each other.
"We really... can't?" Sarah uttered between her moans which now became the background sound of the moment.
Yet, her pleading, rather than exciting Leon even further, only caused him to suddenly freeze.
'That would mean enabling me to make another hero,' Leon thought, petrified by the thought.
In but an instant, the memories of his crimes against humanity flashed before Leon's eyes.
The villages that he heroically burned down. The women and children that he left to starve after killing out all the men in their villages. The cities that he nuked, left nothing but irradiated desert behind.
All the deeds that Leon heroically committed. All the things that his hero status enabled him to do and then slave collar prompted into.
Leon closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." Sarah attempted to salvage the situation, noticing the changes that her words brought to Leon's mood by feeling the changes happening to his body.
'Wait!'
Just as Leon was about to relax and ignore both his unpleasant memories and then the girl's suggestion, a single idea struck his mind.
'If my logical side was just my coping mechanism for having my freedom stolen...' Leon thought.
His head started to hurt.
Just thinking about something that went against the ideology he created and lived by for years caused his brain to feel as if someone set it on fire. His thoughts creating new pathways through his mind in ways they never did before...
It was a feeling to someone standing up and trying to use their legs for the very first time in their life.
"Fuck!" Leon screamed out, releasing his hands from the girl only to bring them to his temples.
Leon covered his eyes with the palms of his hands as even the tiniest bit of light made his eyeballs feel like they were going to explode.
"What's wrong?!" Sarah called out, bringing her own hands to Leon's face.
But the bloodmancer was far beyond the point where he could feel it.
'If my coldly logical side was nothing but a projection aimed at saving my sanity, then what about my feelings towards heroes?'
Leon opened up his eyes wide, only having the palms of his hands to thank for shielding them from the bright light of the day.
For but a second, a powerful desire to just drop all the pretense and push the girl down appeared in his soul.
'She is willing... More than just willing,' he thought, rationalizing the way that would lead to him fulfilling this simple, animalistic desire of his. 'Isn't she the perfect example of who I said I'm interested in? Someone who's willing to beg me with tears in her eyes just for me to bed her?!'
For but a second, Leon was about to cave in.
And then, his logical personality struck back.
'No, that's not it.'
Leon imagined speaking to his own reflection. From one side, there was his freed self. On the other, the mature person that the traumatic experiences of his original life forced him to be.
Yet, neither of the sides spoke. The naive, freedom-obsessed side was all tensed up as if invisible chains held it back from unleashing its desires upon the world.
And then...
There was this cold, logical side of his. The same one that rationalized everything that he did in his life so far. The side that made him despise his life to the point of abandoning it.
And this logical side of his simply stared down at its reflection with nothing but disgust in its eyes.
Disgust... That was exactly the same feeling that Leon held towards the notion of someone claiming his freedom. This time, however, it wasn't the slavery that he could see reflecting in those disgust-filled eyes.
It was the fake pretense of heroism that only a naive person would believe in.
'A hero for one is a monster for the other,' Leon recalled a sentence that came to his mind when the blood of his beloved teacher dripped down from the dagger in his hand.
He saw the complex feelings he could see in that poor old man's eyes when he looked at his greatest student now turned into nothing more but an enslaved murderer.
A feeling of regret, care... and deep hate.
And this one memory forced Leon to pull his hands away and accept the painful light that then fell upon his eyes.
"No," he said, standing up from the bed before gently moving the girl from his lap and then onto the bed. "We can't go any further," he said, ignoring the pain that restricting his lust caused. "I'm sorry."
He could feel the burning desire in his loins, longing after the caring touch of the girl's hand. He could feel the desire of his arms to enclose the girl's small frame, bringing her softness to his chest.
Leon could feel the wish of his lips to connect with Sarah's mouth so that they could both revel in the warmth and sweetness of the other.
But above all, he could see the shadow of his own heroic spirit lurking right behind the girl and behind every desire that drew him to her.
'If I allow this to go any further, then I won't be able to stop myself later,' Leon's logical side spoke directly to his mind. 'And right now I'm too weak, too susceptible to the return of the heroic spirit.'
"I'm sorry," Leon said again, turning his face back to the girl. "But we will have to save it all for when you are ready," he added, turning around and reaching out with his hand to rustle the girl's hand.
"But for now, I have to go," Leon said, pulling his hand away.
"Wait!" Sarah shouted, reaching out with her own hand in a desperate attempt to hold the bloodmancer in place. "Will you... Will we meet again?" she then asked while tears trickled down her cheeks.
Leon stood silent for but a moment. He took several breaths while allowing the girl's question to sink deep into his mind.
"If such is our fate," he then replied, grabbing one last piece of meat from the tray the girl brought several hours ago before heading towards the doors. "Before I go, I only can tell you this," Leon then said, turning his blank face over his shoulder as he looked at the girl.
"If you truly wish to chance upon me again, then you cannot waste away in this village. Find a way to grow..." Leon turned his head back towards the doors only to press them open and step over the threshold.
"And then we shall meet again."