FFF-Tier System, SSS-Rank Wife-Chapter 58: Midnight confession

*** Selia’s PoV***

Despite the show he had to endure, Leon didn’t take long to fall asleep.

He ate a lot, then dragged Selia through the busy dining hall and then up the stairs and to their room, only to then end up with several spikes of excitement, a literal wrestling match that he concluded with a crafty, glorious finish...

And yet, despite all of this, just a few minutes after he locked Selia in the prison of the blanket and turned his back to her, she heard his breathing stabilize.

Not in the well-rehearsed way she saw him breathe before. Instead, the rhythm of his breath fell into a more natural, steady, slightly slower pattern. And as soon as that pattern slowed a further bit down, Selia could say with perfect confidence that he had fallen asleep.

’Hosting him on my lap back then is now paying in quite the unexpected ways,’ she thought.

Her attempts to struggle out of her prison ceased as soon as she sensed her unexpected companion relax. Now that he had properly fallen asleep?

Rather than trying to force her way out to the side, as if she merely wanted to stand up, Selia pushed her arms up, sliding them over her own skin until she managed to push them past her chest and over her collarbone.

Her left hand escaped the top of the blanket first, creating just enough room for her right to follow suit. And with her hands freed...

Selia breathlessly said a word, infusing it with but the very essence of speech and not a single iota of voice.

Her nimble fingers then caught the vibration of the air that was her soundless voice, holding it still while it tried to wrestle itself free, eager to act like it was in its nature - like a wave of sound would.

Selia, however, held it firmly between her fingers, steadily tightening her grasp upon it up until it could no longer struggle outwards. And as soon as it struggled inwards instead, she etched just a sliver of her mana into it.

The cage of her fingers relaxed, allowing her to push two of her fingers out before bringing them right back upon the trapped word, slapping it in the direction of her own stomach.

Cloth of the blanket, her own skin, blood vessels and flesh, the word penetrated it all, the energy of the mana she etched into it releasing it only once it struck the very core of her mana reserves.

And once the only power that held it back from unleashing its struggle back to the outside had vanished into the pool of Selia’s mana, the meaning contained within the word exploded, scattering Selia’s own mana through her body for the one instant it all gravitated right back into her core.

It was this single pulse, a moment of her mana decompressing and diffusing throughout her flesh only to then surge right back, that struck into every single toxic particle inside of her system, cleansing all of it in one go.

’That was...’

Selia allowed herself an exhausted sigh, all the while perfectly careful not to act too loud in fear of waking Leon up.

’That was something else...’

She hung her head back.

Freed from the clutches of the alcohol, her head regained clarity, her thoughts surged and her body returned to its peak strength. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Yet, with all those physical restraints dissolving, so did the fluid courage that allowed her to act the way she did just a few moments earlier.

With the surge of her strength, so did her blood surge up to her cheeks as she recalled all that she did, all that she revealed to the man sleeping right next to her.

’AAAAAAAAh!’

Her thoughts turned into one long, high-pitched scream of extreme embarrassment.

Selia’s hands, now freed from underneath the blanket, rushed up to her head only to cover her face as she hid away from the darkness in the room, the one other witness to her shameless act from before.

’Breathe in... breathe out... breathe in...’

Having no other options at the top of her head, Selia ended up replicating the very same breathing exercise Leon liked to do. And lo and behold, after just a few moments, it worked.

Her hands slowly slid down her face, revealing her wide-open eyes to the deep darkness of the room, broken only by an occasional streak of light reflected off someone’s metallic accessory as he walked past the shine escaping from the windows of the inn’s ground floor.

’I went so far, and yet...’

Selia’s eyes escaped to the side, to where dark hair hid the back of Leon’s head from her.

’And yet, he didn’t try to take advantage.’

That was weird.

A paradoxical answer to the question Selia desperately wanted to know the actual answer for.

He didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. He didn’t outright refuse it either. He neither fought back nor allowed the flow of the moment to carry him with it.

None of the things that Selia expected to happen, happened.

Instead, that weakling somehow managed to first outwit and then overpower her, the saintess of two fulfilled fate and destiny marked out by the divine!

Just the memory of how he pretended to play along only to attack when she finally lowered her guard and accepted the consequences of the bet she made with herself was enough to cause Selia’s heart to throb.

’Who doesn’t have a weak spot for an underdog that managed to overcome the odds stacked against them?’ she quickly justified it in her thoughts.

Then came the memory of Leon cleverly overpowering her with the use of something as simple as a damn blanket, a move she never saw coming!

’Ladies are known to like those who can pin them down!’ Selia argued with herself as her breathing grew slightly hotter.

And then...

"I would never forgive myself."

Back when she heard it, Selia comfortably blamed the alcohol for the intense heat she felt on her face.

But now, she didn’t have such a convenient excuse anymore. And without it, in the face of that very same heat now exploding on her cheeks, she struggled to find a way to twist the obvious into something less embarrassing, less...

Less of a determining factor of her whole future.

’How did we even get so familiar with each other so damn quickly?!’

Unable to find a proper answer for the way she reacted to her memories, Selia hid her face in her eyes again, muffling an annoyed squeal that threatened to escape from her lips.

’Is it a divine intervention?! A scheme of my fates? But I’ve already fulfilled them both!’

By all means, Selia should be free from the interference of her fate in her life.

She struggled without break for years, running around to do all sorts of errands her fates sent her to do, completing missions others deemed impossible, achieving feats that even the bishop didn’t dare to burden her with.

Thanks to all this effort, she managed to complete both of her fates, achieve the peak state she was destined for.

In theory, all that was left was to wait for her chosen one to appear only for her to kill the bastard off, thus forcing her fate back on the track of a sword saint instead.

When she couldn’t bring herself to do it back in the jungle, she ended up pushing with all her might to warm her relationship with that weird otherworlder, hoping to skew the scales of the fate.

’Seeing just how hard my life pushed me towards the path of the saintess given all my efforts to force it on the path of the sword saint, I thought if I did the opposite...!’

Selia stifled her tears.

Therein lay the answer to her question.

She was the one who pushed their relationship to grow as close and intimate as she could, hoping that just like before, her destiny would push against her efforts, slinging her right back to the path of a sword saint.

And while that happened exactly as Selia planned...

She clearly ended up falling for that stupid weakling of an otherworlder!

’I would never forgive myself.’

Leon’s words rang in Selia’s ears again, only to bring her even more anguish.

She was aware of how heartlessly she used him.

From the very moment she decided against killing him on the spot, she only ever looked for ways to skew her own destiny. And while Leon certainly benefited from it...

’Not even once did I consider how he felt about any of it!’

"I would never forgive myself if I failed to resist your temptations while you are drunk and defenseless."

Leon’s words proved his moral mantle, while turning into a whip over Selia’s own lack thereof.

’What a saintess I am,’ she thought, gritting her teeth as she finally revealed her face to the darkness of the room again.

Any attempts to hide, even if only from the air in the room, made her feel even more sick to her stomach.

’While he thought more of me than of himself, I’ve only ever hoped to use him for my own benefit. And yet...’

Once again, Selia turned her head slightly to the side, daring only to steal the sneakiest of peeks over Leon’s face.

In his sleep, he had obviously lowered his guard and gave up on his earlier objective, rolling off the end of the blanket and thus fully freeing Selia from her prison of cushions and cloth.

Instinctively, she pushed the blanket away, fully freeing herself... only to end up staring at her own, nearly naked body, that she so easily tried to barter for a change in her fate.

It was a struggle she continued for years. No one in the world, upon knowing of her plight, would ever admonish her for what she did.

’I have a feeling, he would be the last person in the whole world to do so,’ Selia thought as she rolled over to the side before lifting herself up on her hands and then staring directly into Leon’s sleeping face.

No one would blame her, not even the high charges of the Jahel’s church. Going by the feeling of her gut, not even Leon himself would.

But what did it matter, when it was Selia herself that couldn’t forgive herself?

"I’m sorry, kiddo," Selia whispered while reaching out to push away a stray strand of hair that wandered over Leon’s face, stopping her from fully adoring his peaceful expression.

It was a rare one, something he wouldn’t really show while awake, always busy doing things, searching for even the tiniest advantages, angles and leverages he could use to better settle himself in this unknown and unforgiving world.

Only now, deep in his sleep, did he dare to lower his guard and relax, maybe even thanks to knowing Selia was here, the one person he bonded with upon his tragic case of spatial kidnapping. And weirdly enough, this peaceful face of his... only made him all the more endearing.

"What a hard worker you are," Selia spoke in a soft, silent voice, her hand involuntarily reaching out and giving his cheek a gentle caress.

Then, pushed by nothing but her very primal instincts, Selia laid back down on the bed. But instead of returning to her corner and covering herself up with the blanket to hide the evidence of her escape... she instead scooted over and reached out, wrapping her arms behind Leon’s neck before pulling his head in while pushing her own chest out.

"Sleep well, Leon..." she whispered, cradling his head into her bosom. "It might not be much, but..." she gulped down, scared by the weird feeling that made her act, think and speak the way she did, while fully aware of the weight of the next words that were about to leave her mouth, free from her will’s oversight.

"If you will have me," Selia pulled her head back just far enough to catch a glimpse of Theo’s face currently pressed against the cushion of her nearly bare chest, "then I might just accept this destiny and share my fate with you."