Emrys kept crying, holding his mother tight in his arms.
He had no desire left to hold back. The tears fell without him trying to wipe them away. After all these years, after all the searching, all the theories, and all the moments when he'd ended up wondering if he'd ever find her, she was finally right there in front of him.
He didn't want to think about what came next. He didn't want to dwell on the questions already waiting in some corner of his mind.
For now, he just wanted to enjoy this embrace. She held him with a strength he wouldn't have thought possible from someone so slender, a grip that was almost painful in its sincerity, and he clung to it without the slightest shame, his face buried against her shoulder, breathing in a scent he couldn't have described but that some part of him recognized all the same, as if his body had kept the memory of something his mind had long since forgotten.
He couldn't even really tell anymore where the water ended and the ground under his feet began, entirely absorbed in the single sensation of finally, truly, having found her again after all this time.
A little further along the shore, a few bones jutted here and there out of the ground, scattered — Emrys couldn't see them and didn't pay them any real attention, but he wouldn't have been surprised to find them there, since he still remembered the time when he used to play with these corpses without knowing what they were.
Above them, something heavier than ordinary darkness seemed to press down on the whole landscape — not the night he'd grown used to since losing his sight, but something closed off, compact, like a ceiling shut down over the entire world.
A few more things Emrys could only guess at by reaching back into his childhood memories.
His mother stayed silent for a moment before gently running a hand through his hair.
"Emrys…"
He didn't answer.
"You can stop now."
He tightened his arms around her slightly.
"Can't."
His voice was muffled.
His mother let out a small, amused sigh.
"You've grown into a big boy, though."
Emrys didn't move.
"So?"
"So… you're a little old to be crying like this."
He stayed silent for a few seconds.
"Don't give a damn," he finally answered, his voice still shaking.
His mother gave a light laugh.
"I see some things haven't changed. But you should really watch your language, young man."
"Since when do you care."
"Always," she replied, without the slightest hesitation, her voice staying soft despite the firmness of the words. "Just because I wasn't there physically doesn't mean I didn't care, Emrys."
He didn't understand what she meant by that, but he wasn't really ready to go into that subject right now. His mother didn't push it either, simply continuing to stroke his hair gently, as if nothing else mattered but this exact moment.
The minutes stretched on. Then the tens of minutes.
At times, Emrys's sobs eased off almost completely, and he thought he'd finally found his calm, before a new wave would rise again without warning, bringing back the same tears, the same tight throat, the same near-visceral need to stay exactly where he was. His mother never once commented on it.
She simply tightened her embrace a little every time she felt him shaking again, never trying to rush anything, as if she too, in her own way, needed this moment to stretch on as long as possible.
More than half an hour passed before Emrys's sobs finally began to properly space out, his shoulders shaking less and less, his breathing gradually settling into a steadier rhythm against his mother's shoulder.
He eventually pulled back a little, just enough to lift his mask slightly and wipe his face with the back of his sleeve, with quick, frantic motions.
"There," she said softly, watching him calm down. "Better already."
"Yeah."
He sniffed one last time, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, an almost childish gesture he wouldn't have let anyone else see. Then he put his mask back on.
"You're going to have to teach me to recognize you without all these tears one day. I'm starting to forget what your normal face looks like. Especially with that mask and that hood of questionable taste."
"Oh no, I won't allow that. This mask is magnificent. It's the pinnacle of simple aesthetics combined with phenomenal functionality."
He let out a small laugh, still a bit hoarse — the first since he'd broken down against her.
And it was exactly at that moment, just as he was catching his breath again, that a woman's voice rose up, not far from them.
"I get the feeling I'm not really welcome here. Wouldn't it be better if I left?"
Emrys froze.
Who?
He hadn't felt her approach. Not before she opened her mouth. His Haki of Observation, usually so precise, hadn't flagged anything suspicious before that exact instant, as if the presence had simply appeared out of nowhere.
Shit. That was a stupid rookie mistake.
His body reacted before his mind had even finished processing the situation. Years of combat had etched a reflex into him that no emotion, however overwhelming, could fully suppress: an unknown presence, too close, demanded an immediate response, and questions could always wait.
He spun sharply, without even fully straightening up, snapping a leg toward the source of the voice in one fluid motion, almost too fast for him to really control. His Armament Haki wrapped around his leg at the exact moment of impact, compressing the air in front of him into a dense mass that released all at once, slicing through space in a sharp whistle before he'd even fully registered that he'd moved.
A compact black blade of compressed air shot out with a brief whistling sound, cutting through space toward the aura he'd only just barely sensed.
His full weight had already shifted onto his supporting leg, his center of gravity dropping on pure reflex, in a stance he'd drilled hundreds of times without ever having to think about it.
The attack cut through empty air.
The woman had vanished an instant before, reappearing some ten meters away, perfectly still, as if she'd never actually moved from where she now stood.
Emrys stayed frozen for a moment, his leg still extended in midair, muscles still tensed, before slowly straightening and settling back into a steadier stance.
A flash of frustration ran through him then, sharper even than the surprise itself. He knew the range of his Haki. He knew that, normally, picking up on a willed presence several kilometers away took no conscious effort at all, and his emotional state had apparently been enough to weaken that precision far more than he would ever have thought possible.
He studied the woman for a moment, and the answer to who she was came back to him almost immediately. That silhouette, that particular way of carrying herself, that unsettling presence he'd already had so much trouble pinning down the first time. There was no way he could have forgotten her.
So I'm seeing her again after all these years, and once again in the presence of someone close to me. That's genuinely suspicious.
"It's you…"
The woman didn't answer right away.
Emrys stayed focused on her.
This time, he didn't want to make the same mistake.
He wasn't going to let his emotions cloud his perception a second time.
He took a step forward.
"Oh, you remember me," the woman said, sounding teasing.
"Hard to forget you."
He felt a slight shift in her aura.
No fear.
No hostility.
The woman seemed almost amused by the situation, and that was frankly bizarre.
How can she still feel emotions through that incommensurable void?
Emrys only grew more wary.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was already here before you arrived."
"For how long?"
"A while."
Emrys frowned slightly.
"And you said nothing?"
"I got the impression I wasn't supposed to get involved. Was I wrong?"
He stayed silent.
That answer was perfectly logical.
And yet it only added one more question.
Why was this woman here?
He still remembered what Dubs had told him about her.
She used to come by the forge regularly to ask him if he'd finished his sealing device.
Emrys had always found that story strange.
Now that she was standing in front of him, he could finally ask her directly.
He tried using Structural Grasp on her again, but once more he found it blocked without the slightest effort.
"I'd appreciate it if you stopped using that on me. It's very uncomfortable," the woman said absently.
He finally gave up on the analysis.
"You're still just as hard to read."
"You haven't changed much either. Still barging into other people's conversations."
Emrys stayed silent.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing in particular. Can't help it if you're not smart enough to figure it out."
This woman was really starting to get on his nerves.
He stepped forward again.
His mother stepped in.
"Emrys."
He stopped.
"She's dangerous, Mom."
"I know."
He turned his head slightly toward her.
That simple answer caught him off guard.
"You know her?"
His mother didn't answer right away.
Emrys waited.
The woman, for her part, didn't seem to be trying to take advantage of the situation.
She simply stayed where she was, at a distance.
Emrys turned his attention back to her.
"Sigh. Fine, I'll let it go… but there's one thing I want to know."
Ever since the end of the Holy War, that same question had been running in a loop through Emrys's mind.
"Since the resolution of—"
He stopped himself.
His train of thought had drifted somewhere else.
He immediately brought himself back to the subject.
"Never mind."
The woman made no comment.
Emrys focused on her again.
He wanted to understand what she'd actually come here to do.
But his mother's presence beside him made the situation different.
He couldn't ignore that.
His mother knew this woman.
And unlike him, she didn't seem to consider that presence reason enough to fight.
Emrys took another step.
"Mom, are you sure we can trust her?"
His mother stayed silent for a few seconds.
"No, but that won't be necessary."
That caught Emrys off guard.
"What do you mean?"
"We can't trust her, but at least she doesn't hide it. For now our goals line up, so it's fine."
"What goals?"
"Not now."
Emrys's fists clenched slightly.
"Why not?"
"Come on, Rysrys, we've barely just found each other again and you already want to ditch me to go chase after your girlfriend."
At that comment, both Emrys and the woman froze solid.
"HUH?!" they said in unison.
"What on earth are you talking about? Me, with this gloomy woman? And seriously, Rysrys? I'm not six years old anymore."
"Sorry if I lack tact, ma'am, but your idiot son, who only knows how to hit first and think later, doesn't interest me in the slightest."
That comment from the woman managed to irritate Emrys even further, but he held himself back, gritting his teeth.
"Hahaha! You should see your faces right now."
Emrys's mother burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Mom/Ma'am."
"Okay! Okay! I'll stop!"
After a few seconds she stopped laughing and finally calmed down.
Then, in an imperious tone that clashed with everything about her up to that point, she said:
"Go on! We'll continue this conversation later."
The woman stayed silent.
Then she simply answered:
"Very well."
Emrys didn't lower his guard.
He tracked her presence with his Haki as she started to move away.
He wanted to memorize every detail of that sensation.
This time, he didn't want to be caught off guard.
The presence kept receding.
Then it vanished.
Completely.
Emrys stood still for a few seconds.
He knew she was gone.
He gradually eased off his alertness, without ever letting it fully go.
"She's gone."
"Yes, I'm not blind."
He turned his attention to his mother.
"You really know her."
"Yes. She's a sweet girl once you get to know her well enough."
"For a long time?"
She didn't answer right away.
"Technically I've known her for as long as I've known you, but we'll talk about that later."
Emrys grunted in frustration.
His mother gave a small smile.
"Ohh, your face is always so cute when you pout."
"Stop acting like I'm a baby. And by the way, how do you even manage to see my face under this mask."
"I can't see it, but I can imagine exactly what it looks like right now.".