Turning Back The Clock

Turning Back The Clock: Chapter 40

Estarossa and Zeldris were left alone in their silence as Merlin excused herself to try to do more research on what happened and why the doors crumbled as they left. She said she wasn't sure if the emotion-leveling spell wore off during that last memory, causing the boy's magic to override everything, or if the war ending acted as the final catalyst to break down the doors and free everything as it should be. So, while Merlin studied to find out which of the two of the drastic theories were true, the brothers were left to do nothing but wait as their brother could either be restored to his former self or destroyed altogether. 

"We... failed him. We failed him so badly."

Zeldris didn't bother responding. It was the truth. The had been expected to be perfect sons of the Demon King and pushed so hard to be the flawless leaders their father had wanted, that they lost the thing that mattered most. They pushed down the good parts of themselves and lashed out at their younger brother when it hurt to do so. Then, going beyond that, they expected the same thing from that same boy when they themselves couldn't handle the strain to begin with. He needed to be less childish, more considerate of their time, more responsible, more, more, more, until they had taught him that everything that made him wonderful was wrong, and that his actions and behavior directly correlated to their love for him. That every time he made mistakes- or just what they perceived as mistakes, really- their love for him faded more and more. And they hardly even noticed as their kind, happy, confident, imaginative, Meliodas, turned into a dull, depressed, beaten down, shell. Instead of teaching him to be happy as he was, they taught him that what he was alone, could never be enough. They had taught him to view everything they loved about him, everything that made him, him as a flaw. And by the goddesses, was that only the start... They had been so wrapped up in their own stress and pride, that they didn't even THINK to try to listen to the boy when he tried to get their attention. All of the neglect, all of the ignorance and unknowns they held about why Meliodas had left could have been avoided if they had just LISTENED. It sounded so simple, yet they had failed on that possibly more than anything else they had ever failed at with the demon! It had been so different when they were all younger, before the war. Zeldris thought about the contrast every day as he got to be reminded of that young boy all over again when Meliodas was reverted, yet it still never occurred to him that Estarossa and himself played a part in that. They thought it was their brother who had changed, but instead it was them that changed him as he tried hard to adapt to their own youth they left behind. They didn't even notice his changes through the teen years, and then when he left and was deemed a traitor, it STILL wasn't enough to get their attention! They let their own pride be hurt, their own anger fester and boil, they let themselves only see the blond as a traitor instead of looking at why he was acting the way he was and the part they played in it. All of the hurt and anger Zeldris felt over the years, the confusion and bitterness and complete bafflement over the betrayal, none of it was just. Meliodas had never hurt them, they had done it all themselves, and it still took more than the blond's words and actions for them to see it. It took three thousand years and a repeat of it all for them to finally understand. It took lying to the child and hurting him all over again, it took nearly breaking him, nearly killing him, for them to even START the process of trying to understand. It took far more mistakes and time than it ever should've for them to see how their actions affected Meliodas. And even now, it might be too late. He might be gone, and... in a way worse than death. Which was... a whole new discussion the two demons needed to have about what they saw in that last memory. 

"Our father cursed him as the war ended, yet... he gave us orders to kill Meliodas. And the memory reversion where his magic started to attack him WAS killing him. Did we... Did we end the curse our father placed by reverting him? You brought all of the commandments together for this spell minus me, and our father had said before the seal set in that the only thing to end his curse was to have an equal power erase it."