Kiba Yuuto did not understand.
He watched his King read the manga to the blind boy, describing the pages in great detail. She spoke in English most of the time but would say the lines in Japanese. If the blind boy did not understand the meaning, she would also provide a translation.
It was extremely slow going. A volume of manga Kiba had seen Rias devour in less than an hour ended up stretched for days.
And through it all, Rias practiced with her magic.
Hidden below the bench, behind a tree, or at a distance from the seated pair, small clumps of destructive magic wove their way through the air. Sometimes, they would clump together to form small stick figures of black and red energy bobbing up and down in a crude approximation of Rias' narrated scenes.
It was a display of control that the Gremory King wouldn't have been able to achieve even a few months ago, and a part of Yuuto watched it with pride.
He just didn't understand why it had happened in the first place.
He did not understand why Eren Yeager was such a point of focus for the two Kings of the school, Akeno and even Koneko, in recent months.
Intellectually, he knew that he was their friend. Sona took him under her wing and was teaching the blind boy Japanese. Rias had decided to befriend him thanks to her kindness, and the other two met the dying young man through her.
Intellectually, Yuuto understood that Eren Yeager had been through a lot, as had everyone in the Gremory Peerage, and it gave them a common ground to stand on that was missing with a lot of their human peers. Even if Eren didn't know their history, he had a maturity and bearing that was sorely lacking in the average teenager.
Intellectually, the Knight understood that all the effort the Gremory Peerage was putting in now, the long hours of supplemental training, would only help them achieve their dreams later.
All this Kiba Yuuto understood intellectually, but it was like something was just out of his grasp.
It wasn't love. At least Yuuto didn't think so.
As far as he knew, none of the women he was closest to had expressed romantic interest in the sickly boy. Nor had Eren ever hinted at any feelings of such a nature either.
Sona might have a crush on him, but her sense of decency, his impending death, or some other factor kept her from acting on such thoughts.
It probably helped that the blind boy couldn't see the beauty of the women around him, which usually drove other boys his age to folly in their efforts to impress them.
But if it wasn't love, and they had only known Eren for a little under a year, Yuuto could not understand how the older boy had wormed his way into their heart to such a degree.
Kiba Yuuto did not understand Eren Yeager.
But today, he'd try and change that.
Rias nodded at her Knight as she left Eren with a farewell.
Strictly speaking, she was only entrusting him to watch over the blind boy, something he could do with his familiar.
It was a protection detail they kept up when they could ever since they had learned of his prodigious potential with Ki. While Rias and Sona were the only officially known supernatural factions in Kuoh, barring the destroyed church, it wasn't impossible that some malicious Yokai or Stray would wander into their territory.
Eren would be a delicious and inviting meal for such beings if they discovered his powerful life force. Eating him would give a number of man-eating races numerous benefits. It was always better to have a pair of eyes on him.
The park was warded against such creatures, as was his small house, but Eren came and went from the bench at odd hours, so at least one familiar was entrusted to follow him at those times for his safety.
There were blind spots, of course. The devils still had school and duties and needed to sleep. Unless there was an active threat, there was no reason to constantly watch him. Still, it was another factor to indicate how important the boy was becoming to Yuuto's friends, and he wanted to know why.
Rias had repeatedly insisted that Eren could never know, as he valued his independence fiercely. The sickly boy was unaware of the true danger he was in, and telling him about it would only stress him out and ruin what time he had left.
Yuuto had agreed readily enough, initially not really interested in meeting the boy who had captured the attention of his friends. He had enough on his plate, between school, contracts, avoiding his growing fan club, the occasional Stray devil, and the increased dedication to training the Gremory peerage was putting themselves through.
It was a whim, more than anything, that led to deciding today was the day he'd try and understand the blind boy.
But how to go about it?
In the end, the decision was made for him.
"Are you going to stand there all night?" Eren called out to the park.
He wasn't facing Yuuto, but the Knight could see no one else there. But Eren couldn't be talking to him, could he?
While he wasn't super far from the bench the boy sat on, Yuuto had been standing there without making a sound for over ten minutes now, resting against the bark of a tree. Eren couldn't have seen him, could he?
"I know you're there," Eren continued, turning his head. He wasn't facing the Knight directly. In fact, it was a few feet in front of him, but it was close enough that Yuuto knew it was him being addressed. "I can hear you breathing."
"Sorry," he said as he stepped closer. How had Eren heard him? He hadn't been doing his best to remain stealthy, but he also hadn't been breathing loudly. "I didn't think I was being that loud."
"You weren't. I hear a lot more than I used to."
Yuuto winced in sympathy.
It was easy to forget with the confidence he held himself with, but Eren had only been blind for slightly over a year, according to the file. He had gone through most of his life with the use of his eyes. It made sense that his hearing was still developing to compensate for the difference.
Probably helped along by his stupendous amount of Ki, unconsciously channelled to his body as it tried to keep him alive.
"Sorry," the Knight repeated. "Can I take a seat?"
"Go ahead," Eren said with an uncaring shrug. "It's a public bench. Though I seem to be one of the only ones to use this park."
"It is in a remote area," Kiba chuckled lightly as he took a seat, knowing the wards kept most people out. Wards Eren walked through entirely unconsciously. "Not many people go from the high school to the university."
"You must be Kiba Yuuto, then."
"You know me?" Yuuto asked in surprise. Seriously, was this boy really blind?
"Only Souna and Rias' club members come through here, and you sound different from how Rias described Gasper. She brags about you guys a lot."
"Ahaha," he chuckled awkwardly with a light blush. When Eren put it that way, it seemed obvious. "She talks about you too, you know."
"I'm sure," Eren said plainly. That was one thing Yuuto had understood about Eren without ever meeting him. The older boy never smiled, and on the rare occasions he showed emotion, it was usually in a negative way. "Rias is a nice girl, but she has too much energy."
"She's only a few years younger than you," Yuuto pointed out at the almost diminutive way the older boy spoke about his King.
"I know. But she is still naive about the world."
Yuuto bit back his instinctual desire to defend his King. Eren didn't know about anything they had been through. He had no clue of the true nature of the world or the efforts Rias was going through to give the blind boy a chance to live.
Instead of saying any of that, he settled with a vague statement.
"She could still surprise you."
"I'm surprised every day," Eren said, his voice lightening slightly. "Souna, Rias, Akeno, Koneko, and now you. Every time I meet someone on this bench, I am surprised."
Yuuto didn't understand the exact nature of that surprise but judged it to be good by Eren's tone of voice.
The conversation was silent for a minute before Eren broke it again.
"Ask it."
"Pardon?"
"You wouldn't be here if you didn't want something," Eren grunted. "I'm not good for anything physical in my state, so you must have a question. Go ahead and ask it."
Akeno had told them how sharp and perceptive the boy on the bench could sometimes be, but Yuuto still found himself surprised.
Since he had brought it up.
"Who are you?"
"What?"
"I don't mean your name, but who is Eren Yeager. You came out of nowhere, and all my friends are suddenly all over you."
"Are you in love with one of them," Eren asked with a sympathetic tilt to his mouth. "You don't need to be jealous. Trust me. I'll be gone soon."
"No, no, no," Yuuto hurried to clarify. Thinking about his word choice, it was easy to see how it could be misunderstood. But he really wasn't interested in romance or sex. Not until he had his revenge. "I don't mean stop meeting them. I'm not in love with anyone. You are a friend of my friends, so I found myself curious, that is all."
"More than curiosity," Eren said plainly. "You are wary. So was Akeno. Good."
"It is a bit rude, so I apologize," the Knight said gently. "I just wish to understand who you are. What makes you special?"
"Cut that shit out. You're better than Akeno," Eren sighed. "But you don't need to speak so formally. And don't bother apologizing to a man like me because there is no secret. I am no one special."
"If you will pardon-" Yuuto started to say, but as Eren's hand tightened on his cane and his frown deepened, he shifted to a less formal tone. "I don't know everything you've been through, but what I've picked up tells me your life has been anything but normal."
"That's just it," Eren said as he relaxed against the bench. "My life hasn't been normal by most standards. I recognize that. Circumstances and other people's decisions thrust me into the spotlight. And I used to think that made me special. That I was some sort of hero. I wasn't. Nobody is. There are no heroes. There are no villains. There are just people. I am just a man. A terrible man, but just a man."
"There might not be heroes, but there are villains. Evil people in the world that need to die."
Eren paused, and Yuuto realized he had unconsciously let his vitriol leak into his voice. The blind boy let the silence hang momentarily as if deciding whether to respond.
"There is evil in the world. Animals in the shape of men," Eren eventually nodded. "As well as good. But people... People are a result of their environment. Societal pressures that dig into young minds. Religious indoctrination. Nationalistic rhetoric. Even dreams, birthed by a child's mind, can lead to destruction. But these ideals are foisted on people. By books. By parents. Friends. Teachers. Leaders. Governments. We all do it to each other."
"So what," Yuuto bit back. "We should forgive people for what they do because it is not their fault? Are they just products of their environment? No. That isn't how that works. They don't get to do what they do and not pay for it using some tragic backstory as an excuse."
"I never said that," Eren sighed. "We are products of our environments, it is true, but what we make of them is our own. Our freedom is our own. Our birthright. We can't choose our birthplace, our society, or our family. But the things we can choose define us. That choice is what separates man from animals. And, when others try and take that choice from us, we can choose to fight back or die."
Yuuto took a deep breath, calming his racing heart. He hadn't meant to get so caught up there. He honestly felt like punching when Eren sounded like the church's preaching.
"Sorry," he apologized to the older boy.
"There is nothing to apologize for," Eren said. "You want to hurt those who hurt you. I get it. More than you will ever know, I get it."
"You're not going to tell me to forgive them?" The Knight asked wryly. "To understand where they are coming from?"
"Forgive? No," Eren said. "Even when I understood where they were coming from, that they had been manipulated by forces so much greater than what I could expect anyone to reject, I never forgave them. I just recognized that I was the same as them."
"To kill someone who kills others for fun is not the same as killing an innocent person."
"It is." Eren's voice was dead, completely absent any tonal inflection. "Nobody thinks they're in the wrong. Everyone believes themselves to be on the side of justice. But the fist, the blade, and the bullet. Those are the only things that prove justice. It doesn't matter who is actually right. Whoever is left is justice. They will tell whatever story they want. Worst of all? They will believe it. They will believe their own lies, their own justice."
"So all lives are equal to you?" Yuuto was struggling to wrap his head around Eren's viewpoint. It was like he kept vacillating between a saint and a Satan. "That nobody should ever kill anyone?"
"All people are fundamentally the same. But we assign values to different things. I just recognize that some people's values are completely different from mine. I will never kill in the name of religion. I think it is a stupid belief system that turns people into livestock. But millions die in its name. I gave value to a few people and a few beliefs. And they weigh heavier on my scale than the entire world. So I killed people. I am no better than anyone else."
"So when I say I want to kill someone for revenge for killing others?"
"You are weighing their life against your revenge. Just as they weighed the lives of whoever you are avenging to their own goals. We kill for revenge, justice, survival, and ideals, but ultimately, we are putting things we value on a scale and determining the results."
The pair lapsed into silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
Then the Knight realized, in his engagement with Eren, he had let slip stuff a regular student would never think about.
"Sorry," he apologized once again. "I said I wanted to learn about you, but we ended up discussing hypotheticals like this."
"Hypotheticals?"
"Right," Yuuto laughed awkwardly. He'd always been a terrible liar. "I'm not going to go around killing people. I promise."
"I didn't think you would," Eren gave another minute shrug. "And I know you guys aren't normal, so the subject didn't surprise me."
Yuuto's heart clenched. What did he know? Had Eren found out about the supernatural? That they were devils?
Had he known all along?
"What do you mean?" His hands tensed, ready to call his Sacred Gear in a moment.
"After all this time, it's pretty obvious." Even as the blind boy spoke, a sword's outline started forming in the Knight's hand. "Rias and Souna are rich. Independent. They started helping me with no questions of return. And both Akeno and Koneko stayed with her during the summer? And now you? I'd be an idiot to not understand what was going on."
"What do you mean?" Yuuto repeated, his voice a lot less wary as the sword dissolved from his hand.
"You are all orphans. Lost your family somehow, and Rias took you in. None of you come from a normal background. That is the answer to your first question. That is why they get along with me. We aren't special people. Nobody is. But we all were put in special situations. You included."
"You are right," Yuuto gave a light chuckle. "None of us are normal. And yes, Rias took us in when she didn't have to. She got in trouble over it for a bit, but she is kind. Too kind sometimes."
"I know," Eren nodded simply.
"You know she'd love to help you, too, right? To take you in?" Rias had complained about Eren's stubbornness multiple times. It wasn't really an offer for Peerage ship, but it was as close as possible without tipping their hand about the supernatural. It would also make keeping a watch on him easier. "You wouldn't have to worry about anything. Her family is very well off, so it wouldn't inconvenience them in the slightest, and Rias would feel better if you didn't live alone."
"No." Eren's rejection was firm, giving no room for negotiation. "I don't doubt her kindness, but I am better alone. I have this bench, people to meet, and some time left. I am better off than I have been in a long time."
"If you say so."
By now, Yuuto was coming to understand why spending time with Eren appealed so much to the others.
The blind, sickly boy on the bench possessed an odd charisma in his blank expressions and world-weary words.
Like you could talk to him about anything and everything, and he would understand. He still had opinions. He still cast judgements. But it was like no part of you needed to be hidden. Like he had seen it all and done it all.
It was... freeing, in a way.
To be able to vent these dark emotions to someone who had actually seen the worst of humanity. Not from a position of power and observation like the devil therapists the Gremory had provided. But from the mud and the blood and the dirt.
The absolute lowest rung of society had somehow managed to achieve his goals, survive, and be there for them to talk to.
Yuuto could honestly say he had enjoyed their short talk and wouldn't mind doing so again.
But there was one question he had to ask that had been bugging him for a while.
"The people who hurt you, the ones you never forgave, did you get revenge?"
"I did," Eren nodded once.
"Was it worth it?"
Yuuto would have his revenge. Nothing in the world would stop him. But he would be lying if he said he didn't fear that it wouldn't be as satisfying as he always hoped it would be.
That revenge wouldn't fill the void, the gaping maw in his soul.
"Worth it? In a way, it was." Despite the words, Eren did not look happy in any way. "I accomplished everything I set out to do. Fulfilled a promise I made when I was a child. Multiple promises. I returned the pain inflicted on me a millionfold. Most of the people I cared about even survived. The world became as I willed it to be. In some twisted, horrible way, it was a happy ending."
"But it wasn't enough?"
"It was. I felt justified, even happy, in some twisted way. Guilty. Incredibly guilty. But we don't feel one emotion. With that guilt was satisfaction. It's just..." Eren paused before sagging in on himself. "In the end, my revenge became a tangential thing. Something I accomplished while building the world I wanted. A duty that weighed more heavily on my scale than lashing out. I do believe that, even without that other goal, I would have still inflicted all that pain and death. I am not a good man. I would have still lashed out. But in the end, it hadn't only been about revenge."
"What was that other goal," Kiba asked hesitantly. "What was more important than revenge? If you don't mind me asking, that is."
"It's no great secret," Eren sighed. "I'm no saint. It wasn't to make the world a better place. It was a mixture of revenge, idealism, and a strategic plan. But the main reason was straightforward. I just wanted the people I cared most about to live long, happy lives. Even if I wasn't with them. A selfish wish. I've killed more people than anyone else in the world for my freedom, my revenge, and that simple, selfish wish."
If Yuuto had held any doubt Eren Yeager might know about the supernatural, it disappeared with that simple statement.
Some humans might have killed thousands directly or even hundreds of thousands in the case of bombs. Some humans were responsible for millions of deaths indirectly, such as Stalin, Truman, Mao, Hirohito, Hitler, Alexander, Ghengis Khan, and any number of infamous historical leaders leading great nations and empires.
But those numbers were paltry compared to the races who lived thousands of years of bloody history.
Zekram Bael, the first Bael, was well known to have killed hundreds of thousands during the Great War.
Personally.
His legions killed millions more. During the civil war, that number grew.
Other pantheons, other members of the three factions, and some great monsters could also count the deaths at their hands in the millions. That was what happened when you lived for so long, constantly in conflict with other factions.
As far as the Sitri had found out, Eren hadn't been responsible for any genocides or indiscriminate massacres during his time in active duty. He had been well known to be violent but effective. His kill count had maybe crossed the thousand mark but was nowhere near ten thousand.
It would be a staggering number to a teenage boy, unaware of the wider world. Enough to traumatize him.
To the supernatural races?
It wasn't even a statistic. Life simply has less value when you live for millennia. When the fall of empires was but another day for you.
Yuuto honestly couldn't think about how many people Eren would need to kill to back up his claim.
A hundred million? Five hundred million? A billion? A number so preposterous for a teenage human that it was almost funny.
Still, preposterous claim or not, it told the Knight something about Eren.
For all his talk, Eren's revenge hadn't been clean. It hadn't been without collateral damage.
The Sitri had missed something.
"Would you do it again?" Eren froze at the question. "If you could go back in time, knowing what your future held if you went after your revenge, would you do it again?"
"Yes." The word was firm as Eren spoke with the most conviction Yuuto had yet heard from him. "If I had to live through it a thousand more times, I would still do it all again. It wasn't a perfect answer, but it had been my answer. All the death, destruction, and hatred. Their lives, my freedom, my revenge. All of it together was worth that to me and more. If there is a hell, I will burn in it forever. But I would do it again."
"And if your friends, the people you were doing it for, had tried to get in the way of your revenge?"
What would Yuuto do if Rias, Akeno, Koneko, or Gasper stood in the way of his revenge? It was a distinct possibility. Destroying the Excaliburs would be tantamount to trying to start a war.
Was he willing to go Stray for it if it came to that?
"That is their choice. I wouldn't take it from them, no matter how much a selfish part wished they would side with me. I made my choices. They made theirs. I never blamed them for it. They are happier this way. In a way, I am, too."
That was why the boy was here alone, wasn't it?
The people he had cared about had turned from him, leaving him to live out his remaining years alone in a foreign country.
He would die alone.
That was why none of his former mercenary team had reached out to him even once in the year since he had appeared in Kuoh.
"There is no right answer," Eren intoned gravely. "No solution that solves everything. Just weights on the scale. If you ever find who you are looking for, you must decide what weighs more to you. Your revenge and everything that comes with it? Or the price you have to pay for it."
Kiba Yuuto did not know what weighed more on his scale.
The burning rage, the void within himself yearning to be filled with the blood and souls of those responsible?
Or the friends and family that had taken a broken, lonely boy in after bringing him back from the dead.
Kiba Yuuto didn't think he would know the answer until he was forced to choose.
"Thank you," the Knight said instead. "For talking to me. You've given me a lot to think about."
"You came to me," Eren shrugged. "You are the one who listened to a broken man ramble. All of you kids seem to like hearing me talk for some reason."
"You're only a few years older than me," Yuuto chuckled lightly. "And I think it's because having someone with your perspective and experience is nice. You don't shy away from hard topics. You simply speak of the world as you understand it."
"If that is enough," Eren said plainly with a tiny shrug.
"It is. So, Senpai, I hope you don't mind if I visit you sometime? To talk?"
Eren pursed his lips at the title but didn't say anything. He just nodded.
Yuuto hadn't called him his senior out of familiarity or obligation. He called him Senpai, not because the boy was older, but because Eren Yeager was farther down the path than Kiba Yuuto.
The Knight didn't know if his path would lead to the same destination as the blind boy, but knowing he had someone to whom he could talk about it was reassuring.
That was the role of senior, wasn't it? To guide their juniors?
It was comforting to know that whenever Yuuto wanted to vent or needed advice, he could find his Senpai on the bench.