The Weight of Glory
Leon merely smiled, as if the storm those simple words stirred around him had nothing to do with him.
"Keep it. It may be useful someday," he said, calm and unquestionable. "Rias doesn't need weapons. The Inferno Lotus Art is already her sharpest blade."
Selena lowered her gaze toward the Ariel Blossom Pin resting in her palm.
It shimmered faintly beneath the arena lights, thin as silver petals touched by moonlight, deceptively fragile, almost ornamental.
And yet—
something about it carried a quiet lethality.
The kind hidden in beauty.
For a brief moment, her fingers paused over it, as though sensing some mystery sleeping within the treasure.
Then she closed her hand around it.
She nodded and accepted it without further resistance.
Though she did not see how it could serve her, she would not reject anything Leon entrusted to her.
Not out of submission.
Not out of duty.
But trust.
Complete, unquestioning trust.
