Leaning against the railing, Leon quietly enjoyed the view before him.
He was looking down at the scenery. The rain had finally stopped, and the sky had cleared up into a soft evening hue. The whole of Shinra looked devastatingly beautiful from up here.
As he took in the view, he turned his head slightly to the left, looking at the grumpy looking girl who stood next to him in the exact same posture as his.
Her half closed crimson eyes. That slight pout on her face.
Alice did not meet his gaze. She just kept staring at the view instead.
"...Alice—"
"Forget what I said earlier."
She cut him off before he could even finish uttering a single word.
Leon’s eye twitched at that.
’Forget what I said? Yeah, right. As if I would let it slide that easily.’
Alice was a sharp girl, so her doubling Leon made total sense.
Leon understands her psychology very well, and the real reason for her current attitude.
Her family had made her suffer and in return, she had shut herself off from any further interaction with others.
Whenever she was forced into any interaction which she didn’t want, she simply made people hate her on purpose, so that nobody would ever bother to invite her anywhere again.
Both her choice of words and her aggressive attitude were the products of that. It was a carefully built wall of her consciousness, to make people push her away before they could hurt her first.
What could Leon even say to something like that?
He had clearly understood this after his transmigration, and actually meeting her face to face.
This was exactly the reason why, even after all of her cussing and insults thrown his way, Leon could never once bring himself to actually hate this girl....
...because Alice quietly reminded him of his old self.
Leon looked at her cold face.
Just like him, Alice would have spent the majority of her years at Eclipse in a friendless and isolated phase. It was only after the fourth arc that she had become Ethan’s companion. And even then, her relationships with Ethan and the others before joining the party had been fraught with constant misunderstanding and isolation.
Because she was loud, aggressive, and honest to a fault, people constantly judged her without ever bothering to understand what she truly meant underneath it all.
She had said that she hated her family for what they did to her. For how they used her, and then mocked her for it later.
But Leon knew one thing about her, one thing she would never openly admit.
"You still want to make your father and mother proud, don’t you?"
"...What rubbish are you spouting?!"
Alice gritted her teeth, still refusing to meet his gaze. She leaned further over the railing, as if trying to physically escape the question.
But Leon had already noticed her reaction.
It was painful.
He could feel that pain deep within his own chest because he had once walked through that exact same pain himself.
He too had wanted to make his mother smile brightly and to make his father proud of him.
So he worked harder than the rest of them all, he pushed himself through countless sleepless nights.
He worked harder than anyone until his name became something the world could not ignore.
And whenever the news broke out, whenever headlines reported that Haru Tsukishiro had met with the president of a nation, or unveiled something the entire industry would chase for the next decade, his parents were always the very first ones to look.
They were proud of him then. So, so, so much proud that it became almost delicious to watch.
He enjoyed seeing them like that. It sent a shiver down his spine every single time...
...because Haru had not worked for their love.
He had stopped wanting that a long time ago, he worked so that one day, those same hands that used to strike him, those same mouths that used to spit insults at him, those same people who used to tell him he would amount to nothing, would have to stand in front of the entire world and smile, and call him their son.
Their pride meant nothing to Haru, but still wanted it on their faces so badly.
Their pride was a cage.
So, every time they smiled at his success, they were forced to remember every single time they told him he was worthless. Every time they bragged about him to others, they had to swallow the memory of who they used to be to him.
Their pride was their punishment.
Haru had turned himself into a living, breathing reminder of their own cruelty.
After becoming successful, he could have disowned his family, but, there would be no fun in that, he would not feel satisfied.
Disowning them would have been mercy.
Leon looked at Alice’s grumpy face once more.
A small smile pulled at the corner of his lips. ’You want them to regret it, don’t you, Alice?’
He would give her that.
The same addictive, immense pride he had once chased himself. The kind no wealth or power could ever match.. He would give her that.
Thinking that, Leon wondered, how would House Nightson feel, when the daughter they used and discarded became the single greatest mind this era had ever seen?
When the world begged for her genius, and they had to smile through gritted teeth, introducing themselves as the family of the girl they once called neglected?
Leon did not need to destroy House Nightson with his own hands, he would simply need to make Alice shine so brightly that their own regret would burn them alive from the inside.
That was the beauty of it.
Kindness and Cruelty.
By going that route, he would make Alice the only possible choice to become the heir of House Nightson.
It was also one of his goals after he had transmigrated.
To remove the faulty monarchy of those noble houses, the ones that would eventually bring absolute disaster in the way of his goal.
And among those houses were the royals, and noble families such as House Nightson.
He won’t completely destroy them, instead he would plant a perfect candidate to rule them from within, the one he himself chose.
And once he was done, he would have an even greater link over them, because they all would be favorable to him.
"Ahem. I did not mean to give it to you right now, but..."
He coughed once, then took out a dimensional storage ring from his pocket.
He held it out toward her.
Alice glanced at it from the corner of her eyes. Then, instinctively, she looked up at his face, then back down at the ring again.
"...The heck? Are you proposin—"
"Fuck you, dammit. It is a dimensional ring."
Leon deadpanned immediately, cutting her off before she could finish that absurd sentence.
"...."